Gender differences in the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its components among adults with disabilities based on a community health check up data

Abstract

Metabolic syndrome is highly prevalent in society gradually and has important implications for public health in recent years. The present study aims to examine the gender effect on the prevalence of metabolic syndrome among adults with disabilities. A cross-sectional study was conduct to analyze annual health check-up chart of 419 people with disabilities whose age ≥ 20 years in east Taiwan. We used to diagnose the metabolic syndrome was defined by the Taiwan Bureau of Health Promotion as the presence of three or more of the following five components: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high fasting glucose level, high triglyceride level, and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level. The results showed that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 19.3% in the study subjects (16.8% in men and 23.1% in women; p = 0.110). Our study also indicated that the genders were significantly different in the followings (men vs. women): abdominal obesity (33.2% vs. 50.9%; p<0.001), high blood pressure (36.4% vs. 23.7%; p = 0.006), high fasting glucose level (18.4 vs. 14.8%; p = 0.334), high triglyceride level (24.0% vs. 14.2%; p = 0.014) and HDL-C (21.6% vs. 35.5%; p = 0.002) among the sample. To prevent the metabolic syndrome occurrence and consequences, the study suggests that the health authorities should put greater efforts to address the metabolic syndrome components, particularly in higher rates of obesity-related health conditions to avoid significant health and health care costs in the future.