Silent cardiovascular risk factors among medical students

Abstract

Abstract. Background: Dyslipidaemia and obesity are recognized modifiable cardiovascular risk factors, a major health challenge of the 21st century. Youth obesity and lipid abnormalities are insufficiently documented. Asymptomatic young people tend not to appeal to health services, but they may be at high cardiovascular risk. Material and methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on 138 male medical students. All the participants underwent the anthropometric and clinical examination. The obtained data were statistically processed by using the “Statistica 6.0” software program. The difference was considered statistically significant with p <0.05. Results: It was established that 34.1% of respondents had excessive fat accumulation, 5.1% were defined as obese, according to BMI criteria. According to ethnic- and sex-specific WC cut-offs, 14.5% of subjects were centrally obese. Out of the cohort of medical students, 34% had at least one abnormal lipid parameter. The low HDLc was the most prevalent dyslipidemia in all the students – 12.3%. The results of the survey showed that rural young males were more likely to manifest lipid abnormality – 38.3% versus 22.8% for the urban areas, also rural origin was associated with a higher rate of central obesity – 16%. Conclusions: Young men from Moldova have an alarming rate of asymptomatic dyslipidemia and obesity. Our findings support the need for early general preventive efforts targeting the young population at high risk.