(Press-News.org) Hispanics and Latinos living in the U.S. are highly likely to have several major cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and smoking, according to a new, large-scale study. Risks vary among the diverse Hispanic/Latino groups, but individuals who were born in the U.S. are more likely to have multiple risk factors.
The findings are reported in the Nov. 7 issue of JAMA.
Hispanic and Latino people now comprise the largest minority group in the U.S. Although this population is relatively young, cardiovascular diseases are already their leading cause of death -- and the group is at high risk of future cardiovascular disease as it becomes older.
The data came from 15,079 Hispanic/Latino men and women who participated in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL).
"We found that U.S. Hispanic/Latino prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors had been underestimated," says Dr. Martha Daviglus, director of the Institute for Minority Health Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago and first author of the JAMA report.
A "very large" proportion of study participants -- 80 percent of men and 71 percent of women -- were found to have at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease, said Daviglus, who is principal investigator of the Chicago HCHS/SOL Field Center.
Prevalence of three or more risk factors was highest among those of Puerto Rican background, and significantly higher among those with less education, those who were born in the U.S., those who lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years, and those whose preferred language was English rather than Spanish.
"It is important to understand the distribution of risk factors in this relatively young population," Daviglus said, "because this is our opportunity to educate the community and prevent cardiovascular disease that could be devastating to this population as they age."
The HCHS/SOL included men and women between the ages of 18 and 74 of Cuban, Dominican, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Central and South American backgrounds. The study was designed to investigate the prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases and to determine the incidence and death rates from those diseases among Hispanics/Latinos in the U.S.
Participants were recruited and examined between March 2008 and June 2011 in four field centers affiliated with San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego; Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago; Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York; and the University of Miami. Dr. Gregory A. Talavera from San Diego State University, principal investigator of the San Diego Field Center, was co-first author of the report.
### HCHS/SOL was sponsored by contracts from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and six other institutes, centers, and offices of the National Institutes of Health.
For more information about UIC, visit http://www.uic.edu.
US Hispanics at high risk for cardiovascular disease
2012-11-05
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
New findings on gene regulation and bone development
2012-11-05
The patients have single short fingers (metacarpals) and toes (metatarsals) and can be restricted in growth due to a shortened skeleton. This hereditary disease is called brachydactyly type E (Greek for short fingers). Three years ago Dr. Philipp G. Maass from the research group of Professor Friedrich C. Luft at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC), a joint cooperation between the Charité Medical Faculty and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin-Buch, has discovered an epigenetic mechanism, which, when dysregulated, causes this condition. ...
Grandfathers play a more prominent role
2012-11-05
Europeans spend much time with their grandchildren. And past 70, the grandfather takes the lead.
Norwegian sociologist Knud Knudsen sets great store by his grandchildren. In that respect, he is typical of the grandparents in Europe who are the subjects of his recent research.
"Europeans with grandchildren generally opt to spend a good deal of time with them," says 67-year-old Knudsen, who is professor of sociology at the University of Stavanger (UiS).
"And grandfathers appear to be more involved than before," he adds. In a new study, he found that grandmothers are ...
Prenatal testosterone levels influence later response to reward
2012-11-05
Philadelphia, PA, November 5, 2012 – New findings led by Dr. Michael Lombardo, Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues at the University of Cambridge indicate that testosterone levels early in fetal development influence later sensitivity of brain regions related to reward processing and affect an individual's susceptibility to engage in behavior, that in extremes, are related to several neuropsychiatric conditions that asymmetrically affect one sex more than the other.
Although present at low levels in females, testosterone is one of the primary sex hormones that exerts ...
Inhibition of enzyme NOX4 prevents liver fibrosis
2012-11-05
Researchers at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) have led a study published in PLoS One showing that the inhibition of a family member of NADPH oxidase enzyme, NOX4, plays an important role in liver fibrosis.
The researchers studied the function of a cytokine called transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) in the pathophysiology of the liver, which is one of the main research lines of the Biological Clues of the Invasive and Metastatic Phenotype research group at the IDIBELL, leaded by Isabel Fabregat.
This paper is related with the processes of ...
Massive volcanic eruption puts past climate and people in perspective
2012-11-05
The largest volcanic eruption on Earth in the past millions of years took place in Indonesia 74,000 years ago and researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute can now link the colossal eruption with the global climate and the effects on early humans. The results are published in the scientific journal Climate of the Past.
The volcano Toba is located in Indonesia on the island Sumatra, which lies close to the equator. The colossal eruption, which occurred 74,000 years ago, left a crater that is about 50 km wide. Expelled with the eruption was 2,500 cubic kilometers of lava ...
Crystals for efficient refrigeration
2012-11-05
Washington, D.C.--Researchers at the Carnegie Institution have discovered a new efficient way to pump heat using crystals. The crystals can pump or extract heat, even on the nanoscale, so they could be used on computer chips to prevent overheating or even meltdown, which is currently a major limit to higher computer speeds. The research is published in the Physical Review Letters.
Ronald Cohen, staff scientist at Carnegie's Geophysical Laboratory and Maimon Rose, originally a high school intern now at the University of Chicago carried out the research. They performed ...
More mobility – Due to deafferentation
2012-11-05
In the 'Journal of Neuroscience' (DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5912-11.2012) the researchers present the results of their study, showing how a local anesthetic can distinctly improve the motor skills of patients after a stroke.
"Many stroke patients suffer from chronic impairment of the hand or of the complete arm," Professor Dr. Thomas Weiss explains. Together with expert colleagues the psychologist of the department of Biological and Clinical Psychology at Jena University has been working for a number of years on a specialized medical training therapy which clearly enhances ...
Researchers make strides toward selective oxidation catalysts
2012-11-05
Oxide catalysts, typically formulated as powders, play an integral role in many chemical transformations, including cleaning wastewater, curbing tailpipe emissions, and synthesizing most consumer products.
Greener, more efficient chemical processes would benefit greatly from solid oxide catalysts that are choosier about their reactants, but achieving this has proven a challenge. Now researchers from Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory have developed a straightforward and generalizable process for making reactant-selective oxide catalysts by encapsulating ...
Scientists find Achilles’ heel of cancer cells
2012-11-05
Several substances inhibiting so-called HDAC enzymes have been studied in trials searching for new anti-cancer drugs in recent years. "Trials have shown that HDAC inhibitors are very effective in arresting growth of cultured cancer cells. But apart from a very rare type of lymphoma, these drugs unfortunately do not clinically affect malignant tumors," says Prof. Dr. Olaf Witt, who heads a research department at DKFZ and is pediatrician at the Center for Child and Adolescent Medicine of Heidelberg University Hospital.
In the cell, histone deacetylases (HDAC) are responsible ...
Many patients who die while awaiting liver transplant have had donor organs declined
2012-11-05
The majority of patients on the liver transplant waitlist who died received offers of high-quality donated livers that were declined prior to their death, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. Therefore, efforts other than simply increasing the availability of donated livers or the number of offers are needed to substantially reduce the deaths among those waiting for a transplant.
"Our findings suggest that waitlist deaths are not simply due to lack of donor organs, as many of us assume. Rather, ...