Madhur Verma, Meena Rajput, So
Abstract
Introduction: The relevance of both hypertension and obesity, as important public health challenges, is increasing worldwide as they do not present as any immediate life threatening condition. The relationship between Hypertension & BMI is of particular interest to developing countries as excess cardiovascular mortality among lean hypertensive subjects has been reported in some studies. The present study was undertaken to measure the prevalence of hypertension and its association with obesity and various other parameters in a rural population. Material and methods: The cross sectional study done over a period of 1 year involved 1080 adult participants from the rural area. Anthropometry, along with BF% (using hand held analyzer) and blood pressures were recorded using standard procedures. Results: 18.9% of the study population was hypertensive with 12.6% in stage I and 6.3% in stage II. As per modified criteria of defining overweight and obesity in Asian Indians, prevalence of overweight and obesity was 15.00% and 34.6% in our population. 70.5% hypertensive and 53.5% pre-hypertensive were overweight and obese. Mean BMI, BF%, WC and WHR was significantly higher in hypertensive (P< 0.05). Binary logistic regression showed that the factors independently and significantly associated with being hypertensive were age (>60 yr), occupation (labourer and business), education status (all categories) and higher socio-economic status. The ROC curves was used to illustrate the sensitivity and specificity of the BMI, BF%, WC, WHR for an association with hypertension in males & females separately. Conclusion: The burden of both diseases is increasing at an alarming rate even in rural India.