The link between being overweight and diabetes is well documented. What’s puzzling for researchers is that Asian Americans are being diagnosed with diabetes at lower body weights than the general population.

The Deloitte Health Equity Institute is teaming up with the Joslin Asian American Diabetes Initiative (AADI) to find some answers, reported Deloitte.

One explanation might be genetics. In South Asians, body weight is stored not below the skin, but near abdominal muscles, the liver, and other organs- leading to insulin resistance.

Asian Americans are 40% more likely to get diabetes than Whites. South Asians, Filipinos and Pacific Islanders are especially vulnerable, according to NPR.

Pakistani American Shaheen Aamir is one of 550 people to participate in the South Asian Healthy Lifestyle Intervention Program. He now begins everyday with yoga or other physical activity.

“It changed my life, health- and fitness-wise,” Aamir says, “I feel light and energetic. It’s raised my self-esteem.”

Dr. Alka Kanaya of UC San Francisco says store fat “in all the wrong places.”

Changes like eating more plant-based foods and exercise can help. Dr. George King recommends Asian Americans get screened for diabetes at age 20 and again every few years, Diatribe reported.

The standard age for testing in the United States is 40-45.

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