NEW DELHI, INDIA, June 2, 2002: A recent study conducted by a team from the Department of Medicine at the Mahatma Gandhi National Institute of Medical Sciences would seem to indicate that Hindus are more likely to develop coronary heart disease than Muslims. Upon closer scrutiny of the subjects used to determine these results, it was determined that 1,415 males and 797 females participated in the study. The report said, “Among the males 1,092 were Hindus and 272 Muslims, while of the females, 685 were Hindus and 91 Muslims.” Dr. Anoop Misra, a visiting faculty at the centre for Human Nutrition, University of Texas South Western Medical Centre said, ” A proper sample size was needed and any conclusion could be drawn only by doing a case central study, say taking 200 each of Muslims and Hindus, and comparing them with another population.” Dr. Misra further adds that a study published in the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India comparing CHD in 1000 adults indicated, “The prevalence per 1000 adults was 47.3 in Sikhs, lowest in Muslims at 22.8 and nearly identical in both Hindus and Christians at 31.8 and 31.2 respectively.” The difference in CHD among the religious groups could not be explained.
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