On World Heart Day, Sunday 28 September, health researchers from Charles Sturt University (CSU) are calling for more university-based health clinics in rural areas based on research recently conducted in rural south-eastern NSW and north-eastern Victoria. The research has discovered diabetes complications, such as cardiovascular disease, contribute to morbidity and mortality even before diabetes has been diagnosed. CSU diabetes expert Dr Herbert Jelinek is part of a research team investigating how diabetes associated with atherosclerosis, a disease affecting arterial blood vessels, affects the autonomic nervous system and leads to disturbed heart rhythms. “Hypertension is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease and is estimated to cause 4.5 per cent of current global disease burden,” Dr Jelinek says. “Early identification of those with higher risk of autonomic nervous system dysfunction, can reduce casualties of severe cardiovascular disease.”