[The prevalence of abdominal obesity in Slovakia. The IDEA Slovakia study]

Abdominal obesity represents an independent risk factor for subsequent severe cardiovascular events. It is one of the important diagnostic criteria for Metabolic Syndrome whose predictive value for severe cardiovascular events is similar to that of elevated LDL-cholesterol levels. The prevalence of abdominal obesity in the context of Metabolic Syndrome still has not been systematically monitored in Slovakia. The IDEA program evaluated a sample of 4183 patients in 103 centres in Slovakia. It has shown that only one in three adult inhabitants of Slovakia has a normal body weight. Almost every second inhabitant of Slovakia has intraabdominal obesity (by ATP III criteria). Obesity was recorded in every third woman (34.7 %) and in every fourth man (27.0 %). The prevalence of the principal risk factors (hypertension, hyperlipoproteinemia and diabetes mellitus) grew in proportion to the increase in waist circumference.