[Prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in adult from Talca, Chile].
BACKGROUND
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has several traditional risk factors (RF), and some of them are potentially modifiable.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the prevalence of most common risk factors in adult population in Talca in Central Chile.


METHODS
We studied 1007 subjects aged 18 to 74 years (66% women), living in Talca, selected by a probability sampling. They answered a questionnaire and anthropometry, blood pressure, lipid profile and blood glucose were measured.


RESULTS
Thirty seven percent of subjects smoked, 70.1% had a body mass index over 25 kg/m(2) and 41% had an abnormally high circumference. High blood pressure was found in 37% (36% of these subjects were unaware of this condition), 44.5% had hypercholesterolemia, 21.5% had low HDL cholesterol, 40.1% had hypertriglyceridemia and 26.3% had high blood glucose levels.


CONCLUSIONS
There is a high prevalence of risk factors for CVD in adult population from Talca. The prevalence of risk factors is higher than that reported by the 2003 National Health Survery.
Palomo G
Iván
I
Departamento de Bioquímica Clínica e Inmunohematología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Talca, Talca, Chile. ipalomo@utalca.cl
Icaza N
Gloria
G
Mujica E
Verónica
V
Núñez F
Loreto
L
Leiva M
Elba
E
Vásquez R
Marcela
M
Alarcón L
Marcelo
M
Moyano D
Emilio
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002677:Chile / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D050171:Dyslipidemias / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors