Calcutta, March 19: Swift urbanisation of the hills and the consequent lifestyle changes are making Bhutias increasingly vulnerable to heart diseases, says a study that blows the traditional belief that the community is characterised by strong hearts.

“The vices of urban lifestyle, highly conducive to diseases of the heart and blood vessels, are quickly catching up with the tribal people who are going through rapid urbanisation,” said Barun Mukhopadhyay, a professor at the biological anthropology unit of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Calcutta.

Fat-rich food, inadequate physical exercise and smoking are known to cause cardiovascular diseases.

Tribal populations, especially the ones living in the mountains, are usually thought to be free of these diseases as they follow a different lifestyle that includes a lot of physical activity. But the ISI study paints a different picture.

Mukhopadhyay and researcher Sobhanjan Sarkar conducted the study on 428 Bhutia men and women living in rural and urban Sikkim.

The ISI team collected data regarding their blood pressure, lipid profile (for information about the amounts of four types of fat in the blood) and obesity level (see chat).

“We measured their level of stress and its influence on these three factors, which influence the cardiovascular health of a person,” Sarkar said.

The results showed Bhutias settled in urban areas were fast developing cardiovascular diseases.

While 31 per cent of the men from urban settings had hypertension, only 7 per cent of the rural men had it. Among women, the figures were 24 per cent in urban areas and 9 per cent in rural areas.

There were similar differences in the level of bad cholesterol in blood and obesity.

“A fairly large percentage of Bhutias, irrespective of sex and area of habitat, were also found to be overweight, which is alarming because it is a pointer to their lifestyle,” Sarkar said.

The findings have been published in the February issue of Science and Health.