Prevalence of Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease and Their Associations with Diet and Physical Activity: A cross-sectional study in a tertiary care hospital in Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death. In recent decades, a CVD epidemic has affected many emerging nations.Smoking, binge drinking, poor eating habits, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia are all established risk factors for CVDs. Following smoking (nearly 10%), overweight, and obesity (5%), physical inactivity is in second place (6%). Coronary heart disease and stroke risk are both increased by elevated blood pressure levels. Furthermore, diabetes doubles the risk of vascular disease. The risk of coronary heart disease has been linked separately to higher triglyceride and cholesterol levels. Objective:To evaluate the prevalence of CVD risk factors and examined at their associations with dietary practices and physical activity in a tertiary care hospital. Materials and Methods: This is a cross sectional study was conducted at Seikh Hasina Medical College Hospital from January 2019 to December2021. CVD diagnosis rate of 450 individuals was used as the sample size in calculations to assure population representation. Participants filled out multilingual, standardized questionnaires to collect data. Standard serially numbered forms were used for the participant data. The forms contained a section for demographic data that listed the campaign date, the patients' and employees' names, the CPR, the patients' and employees' ages, genders, nationalities, marital statuses, levels of education, jobs held, preferred local healthcare facilities, and contact details. The second portion of the survey asked questions about behavioral risk factors for CVD such smoking status, degree of physical activity, daily fruit and vegetable consumption, and usage of seatbelts when driving. Means and standard deviations were used for quantitative data, and percentages or proportions were used for categorical variables. The spreadsheet programs SPSS and Excel were also used to create graphs and frequency tables. Results: Overweight/obesity, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and metabolic syndrome (MS) were the CVD risk factors with the highest age-standardized prevalence at 32.5 8.1 %, 43.6%, 27.3%, 31.3%, and 13.6%, respectively. In comparison to participants who were not physically active, the adjusted odd ratios (95% confidence interval [CI]) for overweight/obesity, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and MS were 0.67 (0.47 to 0.85), 0.87 (0.80 to 0.95), 0.92 (0.87 to 0.98), 0.89 (0.82 to 0.96), and 0.74 (0.62 to 0.89, respectively. Participants who consumed a lot of salt had odds ratios for MS and hypertension that were adjusted (95% confidence intervals) of 1.72 (1.29 to 2.03) and 1.48 (1.16 to 1.77), respectively. Participants who ate a high-fat diet also had a higher chance of being overweight, obese, and dyslipidemic, whereas vegetarians had a lower risk of these conditions as well as MS, diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. Conclusion: Overweight/obesity, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and MS all had comparatively high prevalence in this adult sample from the Hospitals. Physical activity and a healthy diet can lower the chances of developing these illnesses.