CVD risk factors and ethnicity--a homogeneous relationship?

Current understanding of cardiovascular disease risk (CVD) is derived largely from studies of Caucasians of European origin. However, people of certain ethnic groups experience a disproportionately greater burden of CVD including coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke. Adoption of a Westernised lifestyle has different effects on metabolic and vascular dysfunction across populations, e.g. South Asians have a higher prevalence of coronary heart disease (CHD) and cardiovascular mortality compared with Europeans. African-Americans demonstrate higher rates of CHD and stroke while African/Caribbeans in the UK have lower CHD rates and higher stroke rates than British Europeans. Other non-European groups such as the Chinese and Japanese exhibit consistently high rates of stroke but not CHD, while Mexican Americans have a higher prevalence of both stroke and CHD, and North American native Indians also have high rates of CHD. While conventional cardiovascular risk factors such as smoking, blood pressure and total cholesterol predict risk within these ethnic groups, they do not fully account for the differences in risk between ethnic groups, suggesting that alternative explanations might exist. Ethnic groups show differences in levels of visceral adiposity, insulin resistance, and novel risk markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP), adiponectin and plasma homocysteine. The marked differences across racial and ethnic groups in disease risk are likely due in part to each of genetic, host susceptibility and environmental factors, and can provide valuable aetiological clues to differences in patterns of disease presentation, therapeutic needs and response to treatment. Ongoing studies should increase understanding of ethnicity as a potential independent risk factor, thus enabling better identification of treatment targets and selection of therapy in specific populations.