Prevalence of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors by Habitat: A Study on Adult Asian Indians in West Bengal, India

The present community based cross-sectional study was aimed to investigate whether or not increasing prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in adult Asian Indian population are associated with increasing urbanization. The 'urban group' was comprised of 224 individuals including 122 males and 102 females being inhabitants of Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta) under the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) area. The 'rural group' comprised 224 individuals including 135 males and 89 females and was living in a village council located about 80 kilometers from Kolkata. Therefore, a total of 448 adult (> or = 30 years) individuals (257 males and 191 females) participated in the study. Anthropometric measures, lipids profiles, fasting blood glucose and blood pressure measures were taken from participants. Obesity and body composition measures were subsequently calculated from the anthropometric measures. Accepted cut-offs were used to define metabolic syndrome (MS), lipids abnormalities, increased adiposity and high blood pressure in the study. It was found that 58.7% participants were engaged in sedentary work which includes 60.7% males and 56% females. It was further observed that the prevalence of high blood pressure was as high as 70.6% in urban females compared to 55.1% in rural females. However, the prevalence of low HDLc was remarkably high in females ofboth rural and urban areas. The prevalence ofMS was significantly higher in urban females (57.8%) than in their rural counterparts (34.8%). It seems reasonable to argue that people with changing lifestyles due to growing urbanization are associated with adverse CVD risk factors irrespective of their habitat (rural vs. urban). This in turn warranted a comprehensive risk stratification protocol at the national level for the effective management of CVD risk factors in this part of the world.