Heart Disease among Indians is almost two to four times that of any ethnic community in the world. Consider these reserach finding: (Source: CADI Research Foundation)

    * The death rates from Coronary Artery Disease among overseas Asian Indians have been 50% to 300% higher than Americans, Europeans, Chinese, and Japanese, irrespective of gender, religion, or social class.

    * Among those younger than 30 years of age, the CAD mortality among Asian Indians is 3-fold higher than Whites in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and 10-fold higher than Chinese in Singapore.

    * About 50% of all heart attacks among Asian Indian men occur under the age of 55 and 25% under the age of 40, unheard of in any other population.

    * Asian Indian women have a higher death rate from CAD than women of all other ethnic origins in the U.K., South Africa, Canada, Singapore, Fiji, Mauritius, Uganda, and Trinidad.

    * By 2010, 60 per cent of the world’s cardiac patients will be Indian.

Read one chapter (Heart Diesease among Indians living abroad) of the book by Dr. Enas - How to beat heart disease epidemic among South Asians. Interesting that he calls this a epipdemic of enormous propotion!

How does this matter to youth work? Many of the coconuts are going to be faced with the reality that their parent are going to have heart attacks. What would be our responsibility toward our elderly parents? There is a sense of invincibility during youthful days - this will never happen to me. Also true of success driven immgrant generation, who think they can conquer any challenges. But this epimedic is sure to come our way. Are we ready?

The second generation has also inherited heart disease prone genes, foodhabits and lifestyles. Couple of weeks ago, one of my friend had a heart attack. Last year, I lost two of my buddies to cadriac arrest and high cholestrol. What should our response be? Something to think about, I guess!

Coconut Generation