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AHMEDABAD: Age is just a number, they say. But when it comes to the matters of heart, Gujaratis may want to sit up and take notice. A study on 2,500-odd healthy Gujaratis with no history of major illness has found that the average age of their hearts was a good 10 years older than their chronological age!

The study titled ‘Are Gujarati Asian Indians older for their vascular age as compared to their chronological age?’ carried out by cardiologists at UN Mehta Institute of Cardiology has revealed premature vascular ageing of blood vessels supplying blood to key organs including the heart. The study has been published in QJM, an international journal of medicine printed by the Oxford University Press.

Principal investigator of the study, Dr Kamal Sharma , an associate professor of cardiology at UN Mehta said the study calculated vascular age of 2,483 healthy people who opted for medical check-up to know their health status. "The vascular age of the heart was calculated using Framingham vascular age calculator evaluating major risk factors like blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, smoking and obesity," said Dr Sharma. The other investigators are doctors S Sahoo, KH Shah, AK Patel, ND Jadhav, MM Parmar and KH Patel.

A vast study carried out among Europeans using Framingham calculator found that heart age of Caucasians almost matched their physical age.

The need for local-variant of this study was triggered by an alarming rise in young patients in their 30s and 40s coming with severe heart disease. "Alarmingly, over the past few years, we found nearly 40% patients with heart disease episodes to be in their 30s and 40s. We wondered if the heart ageing was accelerated in Gujarati population and the study confirmed our worst fears,” says Dr Sharma.

‘Gujaratis should not be complacent about heart disease’

The study found that the mean chronological age of study population was 46.8 — with a deviation of 10.35 years — while the mean vascular age was 53.34 with a deviation of 16.05 years.

"The difference of 9.5 years on the upper side means that the heart age is ten years more than the physical age," said Dr Sharma.The study found that advanced vascular ageing in Gujaratis was due to presence of high cholesterol (60%), high BP (57%), increased waist circumference (40% in men; 29% in women). “The message of the study is that Gujaratis should not be complacent about heart disease. People in their 30s should not ignore their health thinking they can’t have heart disease at such young age. Routine screening in this ethnic group is strongly advocated," says Dr Sharma.

