The Prevalence of Pediatric Metabolic Syndrome Risk Factors in Iran

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) risk factors in 6-18-year-old students in Birjand, east of Iran.

This cross-sectional study was performed on 4182 students, including 2086 females and 2096 males, in two age groups of 6-11 and 12-18 years. In order to pinpoint overweight and obesity in them, the percentiles presented by the Centre for Diseases Control (CDC) were applied. Percentiles equal to or greater than 90 were considered as high blood pressure or abnormal. Fast blood sugar over 100 mg/dl, total cholesterol over 200 mg/dl, LDL over 130 mg/dl, HDL over 40 mg/dl and triglyceride more than 100 mg/dl and 130 mg/dl for ages of 6-9 and 10-18 years, were regarded as abnormal values. Data was analyzed by SPSS Software (V. 16), using T-test and X2 at the significance level of 0.05.

The prevalence of selected CVD risk factors for the age groups of 6-11 and 12-18 years were 9.5% and 7.3% for overweight, 9.2% and 8.2% for obesity, 15.7% and 16.3% for abdominal obesity, 11.2% and 4.6% for diastolic hypertension, 21.8% and 10.1% for systolic hypertension, respectively. The prevalence rates were found to be ,respectively, 4.7% and 7.5% for high blood glucose, %13.4 and 6.1% for high cholesterol, 8.5% and 3.5% for high LDL, 15.3% and 14% for high triglycerides, and 11.3% and 24.7% for low HDL levels, in the two age groups of 6-11 and 12-18 years.

This study shows a high prevalence of CVD risk factors in children and adolescents of Birjand.