Risk factors for coronary heart disease in the Indians of Durban

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a major problem in migrant Indians throughout the world. In South Africa it has reached 'epidemic' proportions. A field survey was conducted among Indians in the metropolitan area of Durban to determine the prevalence and known risk factors for CHD. In a study of 778 subjects aged 15 - 69 years (408 men), 15,3% (sex and age adjusted 13,4%) had a history of CHD. The important risk factors in men were hypercholesterolaemia, hypertriglyceridaemia, diabetes, and smoking, and in women diabetes, hypercholesterolaemia, and hypertriglyceridaemia. The minor risk factors were hyperuricaemia, sedentary occupation, obesity in women and a positive family history of CHD. A study of the major risk factors leading to CHD showed that 52% (sex and age adjusted 45,5%) had at least one major risk factor at the higher (level A) and 68% (sex and age adjusted 61,9%) at the lower (level B) risk levels. Diabetes mellitus was strongly associated with a positive history of CHD. In 47,6% (sex and age adjusted 48,2%) of the total group resting ECG abnormalities were found that could be coded. Because of the severe nature of CHD in the migrant Indian, an immediate and intensive programme of primary prevention of CHD risk factors should be instituted

Global maps of soil temperature.

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km <sup>2</sup> resolution for 0-5 and 5-15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km <sup>2</sup> pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications