Study Into Why Fijian NZers Are At A Higher Risk Of Heart Attacks

A new study is investigating why Fijian New Zealanders are at a higher risk of having heart attacks or developing angina at a young age.

The research is led by the Heart Foundation, which found that people from Fiji experience 20 percent of heart attacks or angina in under-40s in New Zealand - despite making up just under two percent of the country's population.

Otago University's research fellow Dr Pritika Narayan said she is focusing on genetic drivers which she suspects is a huge factor.

She told Pacific Waves she wants to see young Fijians lead full lives without the risks.

"There should not be these deaths occurring so young in these families; there must be a genetic driver," she said.

"To see that trait being inherited across the generations is just really alarming, and it really needs attention. So that's why we're doing this study."

The issue is also a personal one for Dr Narayan.

"My first cousins were affected, and it's their husbands who died due to cardiac arrests, one in their 30s, one in their 40s.

"I really want to see a future for our people, where our children - they have the chance to grow up with both parents."

The three-year research is the first in the world to look for a genetic link to premature heart disease among iTaukei Fijians and Fijian-Indians.

Dr Pritika Narayan from Otago University is studying heart health in Fijian New Zealanders. Photo: Otago University

Narayan said while lifestyle does play a role, families are likely carrying a certain genetic trait.

She pointed to historical health records.

"For the indentured labourers, or Girmit population that was trafficked to Fiji between 1879 and 1916 - that population undergoes quite a severe famine, and we know this is documented both in the death and denture records.

"But also in the rations that are actually documented...it's less than 1700 calories a day for 13 hours of hard, manual labour, and it's just not enough food.

"And so you see very high rates of infant mortality, very high rates of death during childbirth."

She said the hypothesis is that certain traits - such as those that allowed people to store fat and so survive when they were starving - have not adapted adequately to modern urban living.

"Same thing with the iTaukei - what if those traits that maybe allowed ancestors to survive those infectious diseases, that maybe was protective then, is maladaptive in an urban context, and so driving maybe increased inflammation risk," she said.

"We don't know, and that's what we want to investigate."

Narayan said they hope to recruit at least 40 people but they can include up to 200.

"We hope by the end of this...two years to go, that we will have a clear indication of some genetic drivers that are actually driving this risk for affected families."

This article was first published by RNZ