Four-year trends in cardiometabolic risk factors according to baseline abdominal obesity status in west-African Adults: the benin study

The study examined whether abdominal obesity (ao) according to waist circumference was associated with more unfavourable changes in other cardiometabolic risk (cmr) factors in sub-saharan africans. the study included 541 randomly selected and apparently healthy subjects (50% women) aged 25-60 years. complete data at baseline,24,and 48 months later was available in 366 subjects. ao was associated with higher cmr at baseline and over the follow-up period,except for high blood pressure. a significantly higher incidence of high ratio of total cholesterol: hdl-cholesterol (tc/hdl-c) was associated with ao. controlling for wc changes,age,baseline diet,and lifestyles,the relative risk (rr) of low hdl-c and high tc/hdl-c was 3.2 (95% ci 1.06-9.61) and 7.4 (95% ci 2.01-25.79),respectively,in ao men; the rr was not significant in women. over a four-year period,ao therefore appeared associated with an adverse evolution of cholesterolemia in the study population. © 2012 charles sossa et al.