Researchers at the University of Hertfordshire will carry our research into the predisposition of individuals from various ethnic groups to heart disease in later life when it carries out screening this week.
Dr Andrew Garrett at the University's School of Life Sciences has joined forces with researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Cardiff in the British Heart Foundation-funded Enigma-E research project into heart and blood vessel health.
According to the researchers, disease of the heart and arteries remains the major cause of mortality and morbidity in the Western World. Moreover, as more ethnic groups adopt Western lifestyles, the incidence of heart and arterial disease is rapidly increasing in these diverse populations.
As a result, the collaborative University teams are assessing resting blood flow in students. The overall aim is to collect blood samples and freeze the serum so that they can follow up the students over a thirty-year period to detect any changes in their health.
"It is known that certain ethnic groups are at much greater risk than others and we are particularly interested in this," said Dr Garrett. "Therefore, to help predict who is at risk we need to look at lots of young people from various ethnic backgrounds to work out what predisposes people to getting heart disease. This first round of assessments has been outstandingly successful, but we would like to increase our numbers from Black African and Caribbean populations either first or second generation."
Enigma-E researchers at the University of Cambridge approached Dr Garrett to carry out this research because the University of Hertfordshire has one of the most diverse student populations in the UK with over forty percent of students coming from non-European ethnic groups.
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