Hawaii to take part
in men’s heart study
Hawaii is one of three sites that will participate in a study comparing early signs of coronary heart disease in men 40 to 49 years old.
The Pacific Health Research Institute has been awarded $1.7 million by the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to conduct the study with Kuakini Medical Center and Holistica Hawaii.
Dr. J. David Curb, chief executive officer and medical director of the institute and professor of medicine at the University of Hawaii, is principal investigator.
Other study sites are in Pennsylvania and Japan. Korea will join the study if enough money can be raised. Collaborating are the University of Pittsburgh, Shiga University in Japan and Korea University.
Three hundred offspring of Japanese-American men studied in the Honolulu Heart Program at Kuakini Medical Center will be invited to participate in the new study.
Men born in Asia after World War II have undergone "westernization" of diet and lifestyle, Curb said. Heart disease risk factor levels, at one time lower for Japanese in Hawaii and Japan and people in Korea, now are more similar to levels in mainland U.S. whites, he said.
High blood pressure, cigarette smoking and increased cholesterol levels are believed to contribute to coronary heart disease.
Although risk factors are similar, coronary heart disease death rates in Japanese in Hawaii appear to be half of those among mainland whites and are even lower in Japan, Curb said.
The researchers want to learn why this is so and find new ways of preventing heart disease in all groups.
The study will include 300 white men and 100 black men from Allegheny County, Pa., and 300 men selected from Kusatsu City, Shiga prefecture, Japan.
Researchers hope to determine whether men born after World War II in the study sites have a similar amount of atherosclerosis, or deposits of fat and calcium in the arteries, as measured by special X-ray or ultrasound exams.
