Risk factors for cerebrovascular disease in urban community of Thailand

Risk factors for cerebrovascular disease (CVD) were surveyed in an urban community of Thailand from October 1988 to May 1989. Two hundred and ninety males aged between 35-64 years were randomly selected from 2,605 households in Bangkok Noi area. Two hundred and seven subjects completed the study. The mean age was 47.7 (SD = 9.6) years and 157 subjects (75.8%) were manual workers. Smoking rate was 69.1 per cent. There were 27 subjects (13.0%) who had systolic blood pressure over 160 mmHg and 41 subjects (19.8%) who had diastolic blood pressure over 95 mmHg. Only 12 subjects (5.8%) had Body Mass Index (BMI) over 25. Blood chemistry determination of the study population revealed 9.8 per cent with blood sugar over 120 mg/dl, 29.5 per cent with hypercholesterolemia (cholesterol over 250 mg/dl), 23.8 per cent with hypertriglyceridemia (triglyceride over 175 mg/dl), and 20.2 per cent with low high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C below 35 mg/dl). Pearson correlation coefficients showed correlation of BMI with blood pressure and total cholesterol but lack of correlation between blood cholesterol level and age in our study. Blood pressure levels, however, correlated significantly with age.