Traditional Indian diet gets a health warning

The nation's Indian community is the latest health "time bomb", with experts saying Indians are more at risk of diabetes or a serious heart attack than Polynesians.

Health officials are calling for targeted action now, before the health of Indians - New Zealand's second-largest Asian group, with a population of around 80,000 people - reaches crisis point. Asian numbers are predicted to hit 600,000 by 2021.

This follows health studies that show young Indian men have more fat for their size than Europeans and Polynesians - and Indians generally now have a higher diabetes and heart attack rate than both Pacific Islanders and Maori.

Professor Elaine Rush, a principal lecturer in human nutrition at Auckland University of Technology, has been working with her senior students to help to educate older Indian people in Auckland's Blockhouse Bay on diabetes and cardio-vascular disease prevention.

"This is not just a New Zealand phenomenon - it's happening to Indians wherever they are in the world. But we need to act now before this reaches a crisis level here that is hard to resolve."

Auckland Indian Medical Society's Dr Benji Benjamin, who is director of oncology at Auckland Hospital, said the reason for the high heart attack and diabetes rate among Indians came down to three things: too much fatty food, a lack of exercise and genetic factors.

"Indians may not eat as much as Polynesians but they are much smaller people so get affected by these diseases far earlier than others."

Dr Benjamin said Indians were also not exercising and had not picked up the Kiwi habits of going to the gym, or playing a sport.

And while many Indians were vegetarian, often they deep-fried their vegetables or cooked them in coconut oil or butter. "They may as well just eat pork and bacon - that's how unhealthy this is."

The other issue was that the Indian community were not seeking medical help until their health problems were serious.

Auckland University's Dr Anne-Thea McGill, a medical weight control expert, said the health sector had to take some responsibility for this growing problem as not enough culturally specific messages were being sent to Indians.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY