Ethnicity

摘要

Terminology is important in describing ethnic differences in diabetes. The term 'South Asian' is used nowadays to refer to people whose ancestry is in the countries of the Indian subcontinent, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.135 It distinguishes these people from those from other parts of Asia. However, South Asian therefore still covers a very wide range of ethnic and cultural groups, and we need to be careful in not extrapolating from, for example, Punjabis to Bangladeshis. Another complicating factor is that there may be considerable intergenerational differences in lifestyles from those born in the subcontinent to their grandchildren born in the UK.