A Diabetes Education Campaign in Queens, NY

South Asians are at high risk for heart disease and diabetes, though
culturally, it is preferred not to make a big deal of this. It is
certainly good to see someone doing something about this and bringing
the issues out into the open...

An excerpt from the New York Times --

"But Type 2 diabetes strikes a sixth of the more than 200,000 New
Yorkers whose families are from the Indian subcontinent. That gives
them the highest rate of the disease among the city's major ethnic
groups.

In this population, "people expect that everybody has it," said Dr.
Jyotsna Changrani, the director of the South Asian Health Initiative
at New York University. "All of your friends have it, all of your
family has it," she said.

Researchers have concluded that less body fat is needed to trigger the
disease for South Asians. "The people of South Asian descent that we
see are often not obese," said Dr. Daniel Lorber, chief of
endocrinology at the New York Hospital Center of Queens. "You'll
frequently see men with just a little bit of a potbelly, right at
ideal weight based on Caucasian standards."

Mindful of this vulnerability, the New York State Health Foundation, a
private group, has donated $255,000 to Beth Israel Medical Center to
help bring to the South Asian communities of Queens a diabetes
education campaign like those found in Harlem and the Bronx.

The campaign will not lack an audience in Jackson Heights, where it is
rare to enter a store without meeting someone who suffers from the
ailment generally referred to, even in Hindi or Urdu conversations, as
"sugar" or "sugar-hogi."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/02/nyregion/thecity/02diab.html&tntemail0=y