Comparative evaluation of obesity measures: relationship with blood pressures and hypertension

The purpose of the present study was to compare the relationship of all obesity measures with blood pressures and to fi nd out the best obesity measure, associated with greater risk of hypertension.

A total of 180 adult Bengalee Hindu men from Hridoypur of 24 Pgs (N), West Bengal, India were evaluated in the present cross-sectional study. Biosocial data (such as age, education, occupation), anthropometry and blood pressure measurements were obtained. Body mass index (BMI), waist hip ratio (WHR), conicity index (CI) and waist stature ratio (WSR) were subsequently derived. Statistical analysis includes linear and logistic regression.

The mean age of the studied individuals was 35.7 years (standard deviation, 9.35 years) and the frequency of hypertensive individuals was 11.7 percent. WSR explained 14.3 percent variance of systolic blood pressure (SBP), followed by waist circumference (WC) (13.0 percent) and BMI (13.1 percent). BMI (8.8 percent), WC (8.6 percent) and WSR (8.4 percent) explained closely the same amount of variance of diastolic blood pressure (DBP). All obesity measures were significantly and positively correlated with blood pressures. The odds-ratio (OR) associated with a 1 kilogramme per square metre increase in BMI was 1.17. Comparing values for a 0.1 increase in WSR was 1.22, followed by WHR (OR 1.09). A 1.0 cm increase in WC was associated with OR 1.07 followed by OR 1.06 for a 1.0 increase in CI. In multivariate analysis, significant predictors of hypertension were age and BMI.

Among all obesity measures, WSR and BMI explained comparatively larger amount of variance of SBP and DBP, respectively. However, the greater risk of developing hypertension was associated with increasing BMI.