Plasma lipoprotein (a), homocysteine, and other cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in Nigerians with CVD

Abstract

Elevated plasma lipoprotein (a) (Lp(a)) and total homocysteine (tHcy) concentrations, as well as fat distributions, are associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. The purpose of this study was to evaluate plasma Lp(a), tHcy, percentage body fat, anthropometric indices, and blood pressure (BP) and their relationships with each other in well-defined, hospital-based, CVD patients in a Nigerian African community. One hundred seventy patients suffering from hypertensive heart disease, hypertension, ischaemic heart disease, and myocardial infraction with the mean age of 45.3 +/- 1.3 years and 58 apparently healthy volunteers with the mean age of 44.8 +/-1.2 years were selected. Anthropometric indices and BP were measured. Percentage body fat, body mass index, and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) were calculated. Plasma Lp(a) and tHcy concentrations were determined. The results showed significant increases in BP, skinfold thickness (SFT) variables, and WHR in all of the CVD patients. Plasma Lp(a) was also significantly increased (p < 0.001), whereas the slight increase in the mean tHcy was not statistically significant. Positive significant correlations were found between systolic BP, triceps, SFT, and percentage body fat (p < 0.01), whereas significant correlations were found between some body composition variables, tHcy, and systolic BP (p < 0.05). Our findings provide supportive evidence for altered plasma Lp(a) concentration in addition to some other traditional CVD risk factors in Nigerians. The role of homocysteine is not well defined.

Serum Leptin Correlated with Anthropometric Indices in obese Subjects

“…Data from the completed questionnaire administered by one of us, indicating the educational level, occupation, income (earning) and living conditions such as ownership of material goods were used as a measure of socio-economic status to classify the subjects into low income (petty traders, farmers, artisans, cleaners and junior staff in public offices with primary/secondary education), middle income (workers in the senior level cadre with university or polytechnics/higher education) and high income (executive business class, captains of industries and directors of institutions) groups respectively as adopted in earlier study [17] in this community. A written/oral informed consent was obtained from each participant.…”

Appropriateness of waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio cutoffs for different ethnic groups

“…In Sub-Saharan African populations, WC is associated with blood pressure and hypertension, increased glucose, triglycerides and osteoporosis (Blaauw et al, 1994;Luke et al, 1997;Okosun et al, 1998;Okosun et al, 1999b;Mufunda et al, 2000;Olatunbosun et al, 2000;Snijder et al, 2004), whereas WHR has been reported to be associated with an increased risk of breast cancer in Nigerian women (Adebamowo et al, 2003;Okobia et al, 2006), and Nigerians with CVD have an increased WHR (Ebesunun et al, 2008). In addition, the WC cutoffs of 94 and 80 cm and the WHR cutoffs of 0.90 and 0.80, in men and women, respectively, were associated with an increased risk for dyslipidemia in the Seychelles (Paccaud et al, 2000).…”

The relationships between body composition and cardiovascular risk factors in young Australian men

“…Whereas a lower level of fitness has been associated with a 4.7-fold increased risk of myocardial infarction and stroke [11], moderate fitness seems to protect against the influence of other predictors of mortality in adults [33-35]. Other strong independent risk factors for CV disease include high percentage of body fat [36] and high WC [37,38]. Using 88 cm as a cut-point for WC, 29% of the participants in this study had high WC.…”

“…Lean men in the current study had more favourable biochemical indicators than overweight men. Systolic BP has previously been related to percent body fat [36,61] and obesity, while abdominal obesity and visceral fat have been positively associated with higher TC [7], LDL-C [7,8] and TG [8,62] and negatively associated with HDL-C [62,63]. It has been proposed that the mechanism of the link between increased abdominal fat and risk factors for CV disease is related to higher plasma levels of free fatty acids originating from the enlarged abdominal fat depots [10].…”