Prevalence of atherosclerotic cardiovascular risk factors among Iranian football referees 2014-2015

the general population, even physically active people including football referees can be in danger of developing cardiovascular diseases and having related risk factors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors among Iranian football premier and the first league referees during 2014-2015.
Material and All the Iranian football premier and first league referees participated in this cross sectional study. Subjects’ data were collected using the standard pre competition medical assessment form as well as the laboratory tests. Data analysis was done by the SPSS software (version22.0).
Among football referees, 23.5 % had at least two CVD risk factors therefore they were stratified as having a moderate risk for developing CVD disease. Some CVD risk factors including smoking and obesity had low prevalence among the subjects. We found that 18.4 % of the subjects were overweight and 45.9 % suffered from dyslipidemia (26.5 % low HDL, 20.4 % Total cholesterol abnormality, 14.3 % high LDL). We also found that 17.3 % of our subjects had glucose intolerance. Positive family history of CVD was seen in 14.3% of subjects. Hypertension had 4.1% prevalence among subjects.
This study found that despite being physically active, 23.5 % of football referees had at least 2 CVD risk factors and therefore stratified as having moderate risk factors to develop CVD.