Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To gain insight into the prevalence and clustering of multiple cardiovascular risk factors in a healthy Chinese adult population in Taiwan.
DESIGN: A cross-sectional study was carried out in 1996.
SUBJECTS: A total of 46 603 subjects (23 485 men and 23 118 women) who were aged 20–59 y and attended a private health screening center for health examination of their own volition.
MEASUREMENTS: Multiple cardiovascular risk factors including cigarette smoking, overweight (23 kg/m2≤body mass index (BMI)<25 kg/m2) and obesity (BMI≥25 kg/m2), lipid disorder (a ratio of total cholesterol level to the level of high density lipoprotein cholesterol>5 or use of lipid-lowering drugs), hypertension (systolic blood pressure≥140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure≥90 mmHg or use of anti-hypertensive medications), and diabetes mellitus (fasting serum plasma glucose level≥126 mg/dl or use of anti-diabetic medications) were determined.
RESULTS: In comparison to women, men had a higher prevalence of current smoking (42.1 vs 5.6%), overweight (25.1 vs 17.1%) and obesity (33.1 vs 21.5%), lipid disorder (45.1 vs 19.6%), hypertension (17.4 vs 13.2%), as well as diabetes mellitus (4.1 vs 3.4%). The prevalence of men or women having two or more of the cardiovascular risk factors of interest was 54.3 and 21.7%, respectively. With advancing age, the prevalence of risk factors became greater for both genders. More importantly, the clustering of risk factors increased monotonically with increasing BMI levels for men and women.
CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence and clustering of cardiovascular risk factors are commonplace in this healthy Chinese adult population. Considering the significant association between clustering of risk factors under study and BMI levels, this study gives an indication that population-based multifactorial interventions may work out favorably for specific groups.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Murray CJL, Lopez AD . Mortality by cause for eight regions of the world: Global Burden of Disease Study Lancet 1997 349: 1269–1276.
Kannel WB, Castelli WP, McNamara PM et al. Role of blood pressure in the development of congestive heart failure: the Framingham Heart Study New Engl J Med 1972 287: 781–787.
MacMahon S, Peto R, Cutler J et al. Blood pressure, stroke, and coronary heart disease. Part 1. Prolonged differences in blood pressure: prospective observational studies corrected for the regression dilution bias Lancet 1990 335: 765–774.
Savage PJ . Treatment of diabetes mellitus to reduce its chronic cardiovascular complications Curr Opinion Cardiol 1998 13: 131–138.
Manson JE, Colditz GA, Stamfer MJ et al. A prospective study of obesity and risk of CHD in women New Engl J Med 1990 322: 882–889.
Criqui MH, Cowan LD, Tyroler HA et al. Lipoproteins as mediators for the effects of alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking on cardiovascular mortality: results from the Lipid Research Clinics Follow-up Study Am J Epidemiol 1987 126: 629–637.
Hjermann I, Velve Byre K, Holme I et al. Effect of diet and smoking intervention on the incidence of coronary heart disease Lancet 1981 ii: 1303–1310.
Ornish D, Brown SE, Scherwitz LW et al. Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease? The Lifestyle Heart Trial Lancet 1990 336: 129–133.
Criqui MH, Barrett-Connor E, Holdbrook MJ, Austin M, Turner JD . Clustering of cardiovascular disease risk factors Prev Med 1980 9: 525–533.
Smoak CG, Burke GL, Webber LS, Harsha DW, Srinivasan SR, Berenson GS . Relation of obesity to clustering of cardiovascular disease risk factors in children and young adults Am J Epidemiol 1987 125: 364–372.
Chu NF, Rimm EB, Wang DJ, Liou SH, Shieh SM . Clustering of cardiovascular disease risk factors among obese schoolchildren: the Taipei Children Heart Study Am J Clin Nutr 1998 67: 1141–1146.
Department of Health, The Executive Yuan . Public health in Taiwan area, Republic of China. Department of Health, The Executive Yuan, Republic of China 1998.
Wu DM, Pai L, Sung PK, Tsai JT, Hsu LL, Lee MC, Sun CA . A preliminary study on the individual aggregation in cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking, and betel-nut chewing in a health check-up population Chin J Public Health (Taipei) 1999 18: 453–459.
World Health Organization . The Asia-Pacific perspective: redefining obesity and its treatment The Regional Office for the Western Pacific. WHO: Geneva 2000.
National Institute of Health . The fifth report of the Joint National Committee on Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Pressure NIH Publication no. 93-1088. NIH: Bethesda, MD 1994.
Richmond W . Preparation and properties of a cholesterol oxidase from Nocardia sp. and its application to the enzymatic assay of total cholesterol in serum Clin Chem 1973 19: 1350–1356.
Warnick GR, Benderson J, Albers JJ . Dextran sulfate-Mg precipitation procedure for quantification of high density lipoprotein-cholesterol Clin Chem 1982 28: 1379–1388.
Kannel WB . Range of serum cholesterol values in the population developing coronary artery disease Am J Cardiol 1995 76: 69C–77C.
Seidell JC, Flegal KM . Assessing obesity: classification and epidemiology Br Med Bull 1997 53: 238–252.
Wickelgren I . Obesity: how big a problem? Science 1998 280: 1364–1367.
Feinleib M . Epidemiology of obesity in relation to health hazards Ann Intern Med 1985 103: 1019–1024.
Pi-Sunyer FX . Medical hazards of obesity Ann Intern Med 1993 119: 655–660.
Janus ED, Postiglione A, Singh RB, Lewis B . The modernization of Asia: implications for coronary heart disease Circulation 1996 94: 2671–2673.
Jee SH, Appel LJ, Suh I et al. Prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in South Korean adults: results from the Korea Medical Insurance Corporation (KMIC) Study Ann Epidemiol 1998 8: 14–21.
Neaton JD, Wentworth D, for the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial Research Group . Serum cholesterol, blood pressure, cigarette smoking, and death from coronary heart disease: overall findings and difference by age for 316,099 white men Arch Intern Med 1992 152: 56–64.
World Health Organization . Diet, nutrition, and the prevention of chronic disease Report of a WHO Study Group. WHO Technical Report Series no. 797. WHO: Geneva 1990.
Wilson PWF, Castelli WP, Kannel WB . Coronary risk prediction in adults (the Framingham Heart Study) Am J Cardiol 1987 59: 91G–94G.
Kannel WB, Wilson PWF . An update on coronary risk factors Med Clin N Am 1995 79: 951–971.
Greenlund KJ, Giles WH, Keenan NL, Croft JB, Casper ML, Matson-Koffman D . Prevalence of multiple cardiovascular disease risk factors among women in the United States, 1992 and 1995: the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System J Womens Health 1998 7: 1125–1133.
Raitakari OT, Leino M, Raikkonen K et al. Clustering of risk habits in young adults: the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study Am J Epidemiol 1995 142: 36–44.
Folsom AR, Li Y, Rao X et al. Body mass, fat distribution and cardiovascular risk factors in a lean population of south China J Clin Epidemiol 1994 47: 173–181.
Hu FB, Wang B, Chen C et al. Body mass index and cardiovascular risk factors in a rural Chinese population Am J Epidemiol 2000 151: 88–97.
Kannel WB, Gordon T, Castelli WP . Obesity, lipids and glucose intolerance. The Framingham Study Am J Clin Nutr 1979 32: 1238–1245.
Van Itallie TB . The problem of obesity: health implications of overweight and obesity in the United States Ann Intern Med 1985 103: 983–988.
Hubert HB . The importance of obesity in the development of coronary risk factors and disease: The epidemiological evidence A Rev Public Health 1986 7: 493–502.
Peiris AN, Sothmann MS, Hoffmann RG et al. Adiposity, fat distribution, and cardiovascular risk Ann Intern Med 1989 110: 867–872.
Dyer AR, Elliott P . INTERSALT Co-operative Research Group. The INTERSALT Study: relations of body mass index to blood pressure J Hum Hypertens 1989 3: 299–308.
Dorn JM, Schisterman EF, Winkelstein W Jr, Trevisan M . Body mass index and mortality in a general population sample of men and women. The Buffalo Health Study Am J Epidemiol 1997 146: 919–931.
Seccareccia F, Lanti M, Menotti A, Scanga M . Role of body mass index in the prediction of all-cause mortality in over 62,000 men and women. The Italian RIFLE Pooling Project J Epidemiol Community Health 1998 52: 20–26.
Calle EE, Thun MJ, Petrelli JM, Rodriguez C, Health CW Jr . Body mass index and mortality in a prospective cohort of U.S. adults New Engl J Med 1999 341: 1097–1105.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wu, DM., Pai, L., Chu, NF. et al. Prevalence and clustering of cardiovascular risk factors among healthy adults in a Chinese population: the MJ Health Screening Center Study in Taiwan. Int J Obes 25, 1189–1195 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0801679
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0801679
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Dietary patterns in relation to testosterone levels and severity of impaired kidney function among middle-aged and elderly men in Taiwan: a cross-sectional study
Nutrition Journal (2019)
-
Cardiovascular risk assessment of dyslipidemic middle-aged adults without overt cardiovascular disease over the period of 2009–2016 in Lithuania
Lipids in Health and Disease (2018)
-
The impact of socioeconomic status on the incidence of metabolic syndrome in a Taiwanese health screening population
International Journal of Public Health (2012)
-
Unravelling the effects of age, period and cohort on metabolic syndrome components in a Taiwanese population using partial least squares regression
BMC Medical Research Methodology (2011)
-
Trends in the association between blood pressure and obesity in a Taiwanese population between 1996 and 2006
Journal of Human Hypertension (2011)