‘Hypertension is racist and sexist’: Scientists find genetic mutations put Europeans more at risk - and Chinese women get off scot-free
Paper by Chinese team offers clues as to why Asian women live longer
Most genetic mutations linked to hypertension in Europeans cannot be found in populations of Chinese people, according to a new study by Chinese researchers.
The finding comes after another recent study showed that 10 genetic changes seen in Caucasians from the continent are tied to hypertension, or abnormally high blood pressure.
But these same mutations do not typically apply to Chinese, and when they do the subjects are almost always male, the Chinese team said.
Hypertension raises the risk of heart disease and can shorten people’s life expectancy.
To learn more about how Chinese are affected, a research team with the Kunming Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the southern province of Yunnan screened over 1,700 patients from two Chinese provinces.
From the aforementioned pool of 10, only one was found among Han Chinese, who make up over 90 per cent of the population on the mainland.