NEW research has begun this week with the aim of unravelling the genetic reasons why some people develop heart disease and diabetes.

It will also lead to changes to the ways in which South Asian people are prescribed treatments.

Researchers from the landmark Born in Bradford (BiB) project, which is based at the Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI) and is currently tracking the health of 13,500 children from before birth into adulthood, will begin recruiting participants to the study.

It follows the East London Genes & Health study where over 36,000 British-Bangladeshi and British-Pakistani volunteers are already taking part.

The Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in Bradford have some of the highest rates of poor health in Britain, such as four times the rate of type 2 diabetes compared to the UK.

Scientists and researchers are planning to analyse the genes of more than 20,000 South Asian people in Bradford, alongside those in East London, in the ambitious project.

Prediction of people’s health outcomes from their genes, called genomic medicine, is now entering the NHS.

One large study in the UK, UK Biobank, recruited half-a-million people, but these were almost all healthier, wealthier white European people, which means the findings may not extend so well to South Asians.

Bradford Genes & Health will address the need for much greater ethnic diversity in human genetic studies, so that all communities can benefit from these advances.

Professor John Wright, Director of the Bradford Institute for Health Research (BIHR), leading the studies, said: “This new study will tell us how genes work to keep us healthier and the hope is that this knowledge will help scientists develop new medicines for our South Asian communities as traditionally the majority of treatments which we use have only been tested on mainly white European people.

“What we find, in the medical profession sometimes, is that medicines successful in treating the white European community, don’t work for the south Asian population.

"We also want to examine genes in people with very high and very low cholesterol levels to understand why heart disease and stroke occurs.

"The study will also concentrate on the genes of people with diabetes, aiming to identify rarer types of diabetes for which more specific treatments can be used.

“By studying normal variations in genes in adult Bangladeshi and Pakistani people we’ll also be able to identify what is normal, as this is vital when searching for genes which cause inherited childhood diseases.”

The study will approach people over 16, with or without health problems, who regard themselves as of Pakistani, British-Pakistani; Bangladeshi or British-Bangladeshi origin.