are you at risk for diabetes and heart disease? the answer may be in your ethnicity

no matter where in the world you live, or where in the world you come from, chances are you know someone living with diabetes. in some countries, it is diagnosed in as many as one-third of adults. here in canada, about one in 10 adults live with diabetes, and many others have the disease and aren’t aware.november is diabetes awareness month, a time to raise awareness for a disease, that can affect many other aspects of a person’s health, leading to serious complications. in fact, four out of five canadians with diabetes will die from heart disease – often at an earlier age than people without diabetes, while type 2 diabetes can reduce life expectancy by as much as 15 years. given the number of people living with diabetes, heart disease therefore is a considerable threat.and although the risk of heart disease is significant, research shows that many canadians with diabetes are unaware of the heart-diabetes link. a 2018 my heart matters survey found that 56 per cent of canadians don’t know or don’t believe that heart disease is the most common cause of death among adults with type 2 diabetes.there are a number of risk factors associated with diabetes; some of which can be controlled by diet and exercise. others are linked to a person’s ethnic background. in a nation a diverse as canada, for example, we would hope that an understanding of these ethnic risk factors would be widespread, but this is not the case. while people of south asian, asian, african and indigenous descent – groups that make up a large portion of the canadian population – are at a higher genetic risk of developing diabetes, awareness of this danger to their health remains low.dr. david lau is a professor of medicine at the university of calgary, and former editor-in-chief of the canadianjournal of diabetes. he has seen the damage that diabetes can inflict on individuals, and on society.according to dr. lau, it’s important that canadians better understand the link between diabetes and poor cardiovascular health, and ethnicity-based risk“. “many of my patients are totally unaware of the diabetes-heart connection,” he says. “if a person with diabetes has a long duration of periods of high sugars, for example, their risks of heart attack or stroke are two to four times higher than a person of the same age without diabetes.”  type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, accounting for about 90 per cent of cases in canada. in many instances, type 2 diabetes is caused by lifestyle factors, such as having excess body weight that inhibits the effective production and use of insulin. however, some people face a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes because of their ethnic background.“when we look at clinical trials involving people of different ethnicities, type 2 diabetes tends to occur ten years earlier in people of south asian descent than caucasians,” dr. lau notes.while type 2 diabetes can’t always be prevented, doctors believe there are measures canadians can take, to reduce the risk of developing diabetes and minimize the impact of the disease for those who already have it. one of the best ways is to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight, by eating balanced meals that include vegetables and whole grains, and by exercising regularly.thankfully, along with healthy diet and exercise, there are also convenient, once-daily treatments for people with type 2 diabetes that can reduce the risk of dying early from heart disease.talk to your doctor and visit www.myheartmatters.ca to learn more.this story was created by content works, postmedia’s commercial content division, on behalf of two of canada’s leading research-based pharmaceutical companies.