Waist circumference, body mass index, and skinfold thickness as potential risk factors for high blood pressure in adolescents

Abstract

Background The prevalence of hypertension in children and adolescents has increased with the rising obesity epidemic. Recent studies have found that prevalence of hypertension was higher in obese children or adolescents than in the normal weight ones. Anthropometric measurements such as body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, and skinfold thickness have been used as criteria to determine obesity in children and adolescents. Increased waist circumference has been most closely related to increased blood pressure.
 Objective To compare waist circumference, BMI, and skinfold thickness as potential risk factors for hypertension in adolescents.
 Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted in May 2014 in three senior high schools in Medan, North Sumatera, and included 253 students with normal urinalysis test. All subjects underwent blood pressure, waist circumference, tricep- and subscapular-skinfold thickness (TST and SST), body weight, and body height measurements. The study population was categorized into underweight, normoweight, overweight, and obese, according to four different criteria: waist circumference, BMI, TST, and SST; all variables were analyzed for possible correlations with systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
 Results There were significant positive correlations between systolic blood pressure and waist circumference (OR 7.933; 95%CI 2.20 to 28.65; P=0.011) as well as BMI (OR 4.137; 95%CI 1.16 to 14.75; P=0.041). There were also significant correlations between diastolic blood pressure and waist circumference (OR 3.17; 95%CI 1.83 to 5.51; P=0.002), BMI (P=0.0001; OR=3.69), TST (OR 4.73; 95%CI 2.31 to 9.69; P=0.0001), and SST (OR 3.74; 95%CI 2.35 to 5.94; P=0.0001). Multivariate analysis showed that waist circumference was a predictive factor for systolic blood pressure (OR 9.667), but not for diastolic blood pressure.
 Conclusion Waist circumference is the strongest, significant, predictive factor for elevated systolic blood pressure; meanwhile BMI, SST, and TST could be predictive factors for elevated diastolic blood pressure.

The Role of Subcutaneous Fat Composition on Blood Pressure: A Study on Students Aged 15-18 at Kalam Kudus II Senior High School Jakarta, Indonesia

“…(2019) revealed that abdominal circumference is the strongest predictive factor for increased systolic blood pressure, while BMI and skinfold triceps are predictive factors for increased diastolic blood pressure. 19 The same goes for a study by Kuciene et al (2019) that concluded that BMI is better as a predictor of hypertension than the ratio of abdominal circumference and height. Further research is needed to control these factors.…”

Causal discovery approach with reinforcement learning for risk factors of type II diabetes mellitus

“…4 and 5 shows two causal relationships with a change in direction: and . Between them, indicates that the change in BMI results in a change in the skin fold thickness of triceps (subcutaneous fat thickness).Studies have shown [ 32 , 33 ] that there is a significant correlation between the thickness of the triceps skin fold and BMI. When the BMI value increases, the weight change increases, and the subcutaneous fat thickness increases, so the causality is reasonable.…”

Relationship Between Waist Circumference and Systolic Blood Pressure

“…15 One of the predictive factor for elevated systolic blood pressure is waist circumference. 16 Waist circumference is also associated in hypertension incident. 17 Setyanda (2015) said that people who have a high WC measure are more at risk of developing hypertension, although WC does not directly affect the occurrence of hypertension.…”