Abstract

A study was made of smoking and dietary habits in middle aged Bangladeshi men living in East London to investigate possible causes of the previously described high ischaemic heart disease risk in this group. The results showed that these individuals were 50% more likely to smoke than Caucasians living in the same area, after adjusting for age and social class. More striking, however, was the very high fat intake of over 200 g/day, which is twice the national average and accounted for nearly 60% of total energy intake. Interestingly, much of the dietary fat was from vegetable oil, and the ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated fatty acids exceeded the accepted recommended minimum.