Diabetes among South Asian immigrants is on the rise but it’s not a new phenomenon, wrote the Toronto Sun April 19, citing a York University professor.

Diabetes risk among immigrants from South Asia is three to four times higher than in immigrants from western European countries, says a study released Monday by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Studies.

But Dennis Raphael, a well published York University professor in the School of Health Policy & Management in the Faculty of Health, says he has been studying the same finding for years. “Just about every group in Canada outside of white European people are identified as having a greater risk for Type 2 diabetes and it’s even higher around the world in populations where they’re having difficult life circumstances with poverty and equality,” Raphael said.

“If you want to understand which populations around the world are more likely to have diabetes, it’s usually people with difficult life circumstances. The one commonality is all these groups experience greater unemployment, greater poverty and greater stress as immigrants,” Raphael said.

Raphael said the solution to curbing the risk of diabetes in immigrant populations is to ensure everyone has enough economic resources to have a better quality of life.

The complete article is available on the Sun's Web site.

Republished courtesy of YFile– York University’s daily e-bulletin.