Assessment of Cardio-Metabolic Risk Factors among Young Adult Females

Problem statement: Over the past two decades there has been a striking increase in the number of people with metabolic syndrome in developing countries. The current study was thus undertaken to map the prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome (MS) and to assess the cardio-metabolic risk factors among young adult females (n = 1303) aged 18-26y from four girls hostel of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Approach: The anthropometric analysis showed a high prevalence of overweight/obesity (20.8%), abdominal obesity (12.7%) among the subjects. The clinical profile revealed that 12.1% were hypertensives. The prevalence of dyslipidemia revealed that no one had hypercholesterolemia and 4.1% had hypertriglyceridemia, 12.1% had elevated LDL-C and 40.3% had low levels of HDL-C. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 2.4 and 4.1% according to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and World Health Organization (WHO) criteria respectively. Lipid profile in relation to metabolic syndrome showed that VLDL-C and Triglyceride (TG) values were non-significantly higher among the young adult females and HDL-C values were significantly (p<0.001) lower among those subjects who had metabolic syndrome. The mean C-Reactive Protein (CRP) level of the study subjects was found to be in normal range, except for 10.5% who had elevated CRP levels. A high prevalence of multiple risk factors seen among the subjects like low fruits and vegetable consumption, sedentary lifestyle, hypertension, obesity. Results: The three common and predominant risk factors (>80%) identified were lower intake of fruits (81.5%), vegetables (96%) and physical inactivity (88.7%). The other risk factors which were present between 30-50% were hypertension, lower HDL-C, Body Mass Index (BMI) and Waist Circumference (WC). Among the non-modifiable factor heredity component was present in 34% of the subjects. Conclusion: The study highlights that lifestyle factors had equivalent risk for overweight and metabolic syndrome. Multiple risk factor scenario calls for lifestyle management to avert later consequences.