The prevalence of obesity and other coronary risk factors in a suburban Sri Lankan community

Abstract

Increasing numbers of developing nations experience a rising incidence of non-communicable diseases in parallel with economic development. Thus, developing countries such as Sri Lanka face the double burden of both communicable and non-communicable diseases. We therefore conducted a study to assess the prevalence of obesity, diabetes mellitus, impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), dyslipidaemias, hypertension, central (android) obesity, hypertension and smoking habits in a random sample of 633 (312 male) subjects selected from an electoral list with a target population of 2974 persons. The prevalence (age standardized to the world population of Segi 95% CI) was IGT 5.27 (3.74-7.78), diabetes 5.02 (3.59-6.53), hypertension 15.25 (11.67-18.8), hypercholesterolaemia 14.86 (11.09-18.61), hypertriglyceridaemia 8.46 (6.27-10.64), low HDL cholesterol 11.18 (8.35-13.99), obesity 9.89 (7.24-12.52) and android obesity 16.35 (12.47-20.24). We conclude that the high prevalence of coronary risk factors is an indication for initiating programmes for primary prevention of obesity, diabetes and coronary heart dis