Performance of waist circumference relative to BMI in predicting risk of obesity and hypertension among affluent Indian adults

Abstract

In view of the fact that Asians have higher abdominal fat at lower levels of body mass index (BMI), measures of abdominal adiposity such as waist circumference (WC) and waist to hip ratio (WHR) were investigated as predictors of hypertension. Data on BMI, WC, WHR and blood pressure (BP) were recorded through a cross-sectional study on 419 urban adults (210 men and 209 women; aged 30-60 years) in Pune, India. Abdominal obesity was higher among women than men (35.9% vs. 32.4%). However, age adjusted mean systolic BP (124.3 ± 15.1 mmHg vs. 114.7 ± 17.2 mmHg), diastolic BP (82.9 ± 10.5 mmHg vs. 76.4 ± 10.7 mmHg) and prevalence of hypertension (34.3% vs. 21.5%) was significantly higher (p p p p p