Prevalence of metabolic syndrome among Iranian occupational drivers

Compared with other members of a society, drivers are under more periodic and constant surveillance due mainly to this fact that their type of work requires them to spend most of their times in a sedentarily position. The recent survey had done to evaluate the prevalence of Met Syn among professional drivers in northeast area of Iran.

To evaluate the prevalence of Met Syn among long-haul drivers, 1018 male drivers were studied. Definition of Met Syn was based on ATP III, IDF and AHA. The statistical tests were composed of chi-square and independent t tests.

The participants' mean age was 42.17±10.65 years. The prevalence of Met Syn according to ATP III, IDF and AHA criteria was 26.1%, 35.2% and 31.6% respectively. 6.6% of drivers were impaired fasting glucose. The drivers with the bus, minibus, taxi formed the greatest number of smokers (82.9%) among all drivers (p=0.023). The average of body mass index (BMI) was 26.2±4.06. The most prevalence of Mets according to IDF criteria were observed in drivers of heavy vehicles and also the ones of passenger vehicles, with 36.7% and 43.9% respectively. Based on high prevalence of Met Syn and other risk factors in this study, and considering these factors, should be more careful about this point. It is recommended to control risk factors such as, control of high BMI and TG, LDL, waist circumfernce, education.