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Correlates of preclinical cardiovascular disease in Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians.pdf (241.7 kB)

Correlates of preclinical cardiovascular disease in Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians: A case control study

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posted on 2023-05-17, 23:54 authored by Haluska, BA, Chan, L, Jeffriess, L, Shaw, AA, Shaw, J, Thomas MarwickThomas Marwick
Background. The high frequency of premature death from cardiovascular disease in indigenous Australians is often attributed to the high prevalence of risk factors, especially type II diabetes mellitus (DM). We evaluated the relationship of ethnicity to atherosclerotic burden, as evidenced by carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), independent of risk factor status. Methods. We studied 227 subjects (147 men; 50 ± 13 y): 119 indigenous subjects with (IDM, n = 54), and without DM (InDM, n = 65), 108 Caucasian subjects with (CDM, n = 52), and without DM (CnDM, n = 56). IMT was measured according to standard methods and compared with clinical data and cardiovascular risk factors. Results. In subjects both with and without DM, IMT was significantly greater in indigenous subjects. There were no significant differences in gender, body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure (SBP), or diastolic blood pressure (DBP) between any of the groups, and subjects with DM showed no difference in plasma HbA1c. Cardiovascular risk factors were significantly more prevalent in indigenous subjects. Nonetheless, ethnicity (β = -0.34; p < 0.0001), age (β = 0.48; p < 0.0001), and smoking (β = 0.13; p < 0.007) were independent predictors of IMT in multiple linear regression models. Conclusion. Ethnicity appears to be an independent correlate of preclinical cardiovascular disease, even after correction for the high prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in indigenous Australians. Standard approaches to control currently known risk factors are vital to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease, but in themselves may be insufficient to fully address the high prevalence in this population.

History

Publication title

Cardiovascular Ultrasound

Volume

6

Article number

36

Number

36

Pagination

1-6

ISSN

1476-7120

Department/School

Menzies Institute for Medical Research

Publisher

BioMed Central

Place of publication

UK

Rights statement

© 2008 Haluska et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Clinical health not elsewhere classified