TITLE:
Performance of waist circumference relative to BMI in predicting risk of obesity and hypertension among affluent Indian adults
AUTHORS:
Shobha Rao, Prajakta Parab-Waingankar
KEYWORDS:
Abdominal Adiposity; Asians; Blood Pressure; Body Mass Index; Waist Circumference; Waist to Hip Ratio
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.5 No.8C,
August
13,
2013
ABSTRACT:
In view of the fact
that Asians have higher abdominal fat at lower levels of body mass index (BMI),
measures of abdominal adiposity such as waist circumference (WC) and waist to
hip ratio (WHR) were investigated as predictors of hypertension. Data on BMI,
WC, WHR and blood pressure (BP) were recorded through a cross-sectional study on 419 urban adults (210 men and 209
women; aged 30-60 years) in Pune, India. Abdominal obesity was higher among
women than men (35.9% vs. 32.4%). However, age adjusted mean systolic BP
(124.3 ± 15.1 mmHg vs. 114.7 ± 17.2 mmHg), diastolic BP (82.9 ± 10.5 mmHg vs.
76.4 ± 10.7 mmHg) and prevalence of hypertension (34.3% vs. 21.5%) was significantly
higher (p p p p p