Relationships between blood pressure, anthropometric characteristics and blood lipids in high- and low-altitude populations from Central Asia

We studied the relationships between blood pressure, anthropometric charact eristics and blood lipids in 72 low altitude (LA) Uighurs (600 m), 91 LA-Ki rghizs (900 m), 117 medium altitude (MA) Kazakhs (2100 m) and 94 high altit ude (HA) Kirghizs (3200 m). All subjects were male and had a similar age (p = ns, ANOVA; range for all 374 subjects: 18-66 yr). Body weight (Wt); body mass index (BMI) and the sum of four skinfolds (4SF) were significantly lo wer in HA-Kirghizs than the remaining groups (p < 0.0005, p < 0.0005 and p < 0.05 respectively, ANOVA). However, no difference was found in body fat d istribution as detected by waist:hip circumference (WHR) and triceps:subsca pular skinfold ratios (TSR; p = ns, ANOVA). Stage 1 hypertension was detect ed in 18% of LA-Uighurs, 2% of LA-Kirghizs, 4% of MA-Kazakhs and 1% of HA-K irghizs; stage 2 hypertension was detected in 2% of LA-Uighurs and none of the remaining groups; no subject had stage 3 hypertension (The Joint Nation al Committee on Prevention, Detection Evaluation and Treatment of High Bloo d Pressure 1997). Blood cholesterol (CH) and triglycerides (TG) did not dif fer between groups (p = ns, ANOVA). The relationships between systolic (SBP ) or diastolic (DBP) blood pressure and age, Wt, BMI, 4SF, WHR, TSR, CH and TG were independent from altitude (p = ns, ANCOVA). In the pooled sample ( il = 374), age explained 1 and 3% of SEP (p < 0.05) and DBP (p < 0.005) var iance respectively, Wt was the best predictor of SEP and DBP explaining 11 and 10% of their variance respectively (p < 0.0001) and CH explained 5% of DBP variance (p < 0.0001). In conclusion, hyper tension is more frequent in LA- than MA- and HA-subjects from Central Asia. However, anthropometric ch aracteristics and blood lipids do similarly contribute to explain blood pre ssure in these subjects.