London (PTI): People from the Indian sub-continent are more prone to diabetes and coronary heart disease, an Indian-origin scholar said.

Kamlesh Khunti, a professor at the University of Leicester, has said that people with origins in the Indian sub-continent have a higher prevalence of diabetes and coronary heart disease.

"A consistent finding in migrant South Asian populations is a higher prevalence of diabetes and a higher incidence and prevalence of premature coronary heart disease than the local populations," Khunti said.

"For example, in the UK, mortality from coronary heart disease is 50 per cent of South Asian origin than in the general non-Asian population."

Khunti is engaged in an extensive programme of research into the issue of transcultural health.

Speaking to newspersons before a public lecture on the subject on March 11, the expert said: "Important minority ethnic populations in many countries worldwide are people of South Asian origin (originating from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka).

"In the UK, South Asians are the largest minority group and comprise four per cent of the population. It is estimated that one in five population of the world is of South Asian origin," Khunti said.

His research group has an extensive programme of work on the epidemiology of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, methods of early identification of high risk groups and interventional studies on prevention of diabetes and of complications in people with established diabetes.