Prevalence and clustering of cardiovascular risk factors among healthy adults in a Chinese population: the MJ Health Screening Center Study in Taiwan

OBJECTIVE: To gain insight into the prevalence and clustering of multiple c ardiovascular 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 e xamination of their own volition. MEASUREMENTS: Multiple cardiovascular risk factors including cigarette smok ing, overweight (23 kg/m(2) I body mass index (BMI) < 25 kg/m(2)) and obesi ty (BMI greater than or equal to 25 kg/m(2)), lipid disorder (a ratio of to tal cholesterol level to the level of high density lipoprotein cholesterol > 5 or use of lipid-lowering drugs), hypertension (systolic blood pressure greater than or equal to 140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure greater than or equal to 90 mmHg or use of anti-hypertensive medications), and diabetes mellitus (fasting serum plasma glucose level greater than or equal to 126 m g/dl or use of anti-diabetic medications) were determined. RESULTS: In comparison to women, men had a higher prevalence of current smo king (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 d iabetes mellitus (4.1 vs 3.4%). The prevalence of men or women having two o r more of the cardiovascular risk factors of interest was 54.3 and 21.7%, r espectively. With advancing age, the prevalence of risk factors became grea ter for both genders. More importantly, the clustering of risk factors incr eased monotonically with increasing BMI levels for men and women. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence and clustering of cardiovascular risk factors a re commonplace in this healthy Chinese adult population. Considering the si gnificant association between clustering of risk factors under study and BM I levels, this study gives an indication that population-based multifactori al interventions may work out favorably for specific groups.