The age-prevalence profile of abdominal obesity among patients in a diabetes referral clinic in Jamaica

ABSTRACT

Generalised obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension and premature death, but abdominal or central obesity is even more closely related to these. Diabetes causes accelerated atherosclerosis and this results in peripheral vascular and ischaemic heart disease and stroke, major causes of death in diabetics in the Caribbean. Diabetics who have abdominal obesity are therefore at increased risk for these events. 485 patients attending the Diabetes Referral Clinic at the University Hospital of the West Indies, Jamaica, were evaluated for abdominal obesity based ont the ratio between their waist and hip measurements. There was an increase in the numbers of diabetics with increasing age. Abdominal obesity was significantly more prevalent among females (90 percent) than among males (34.9 percent) (X = 142; p < 0.0001), and massive obesity was detected in 31.1 percent of females. However, the prevalence of obesity among males and females was not significantly age-related. Given the high prevalence of obesity in this clinic population, more precise studies of abdominal obesity associated morbidity in diabetics should be undertaken.