Pharmacy Daily | Only 9% aware of high chol

A QUARTER of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults had high cholesterol but only about one in 10, or 9.1%, were aware they had it, a survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has found. The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Measures Survey 2012-13 involved about 3,300 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults and found that 11.1% had diabetes and 65.3% had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease. While one in four adults had abnormal or high total cholesterol levels according to blood tests, only one in 10 self-reported having high cholesterol as a current long term health condition, ABS said. The survey found one in five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were taking cholesterol lowering medications compared with one in eight non-Indigenous Australians, the Heart Foundation said. Almost one in five, or 17.9%, had signs of chronic kidney disease. Compared with non-Indigenous population, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were more than three times as likely to have diabetes, twice as likely to have signs of chronic kidney disease, almost twice as likely to have high triglycerides and more likely, at 53% compared with 32.5%, to have more than one chronic condition, it said. The data follows an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report which found there was still a 10 year gap when it came to Indigenous life expectancy, despite some improvements having been made (PD 08 Sep). To read the full report, CLICK HERE.

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