title: How much excess body weight, blood sugar, or age can double the risk of hypertension?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Despite the well-known impact of advanced age, excess body weight, and raised blood glucose on blood pressure, the level of exposure to these risk factors that is necessary to double the risk hypertension is not widely investigated, but was explored in this study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional study.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study reports the results of a screening program conducted on a large population of adults to assess the prevalence of diabetes and hypertension and their associated risk factors. The participants were people aged 30 years or older referring to 16 health centers in Tehran. A standard questionnaire was used to collect data on blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR), fasting blood sugar (FBS), smoking status, and demographic characteristics (age and gender) based on WHO STEPS manual.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 7611 people who participated in the screening program, 696 (9.1%) had raised blood pressure. The level of exposure to risk factors for high blood pressure that is necessary to replicate the OR of 2.0 indicated that an OR of 2.0 corresponds to an increase in age of about 9.4 years, an increase in BMI of about 10.3 kg/m(2), an increase in waist-to-hip ratio of about 0.5, and an increase in fasting blood sugar (FBS) of about 85.8 mg/dl.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study indicated how much increase in age, BMI, waist-hip ratio, and FBS can double the risk of hypertension. These results may be helpful for public health policy and prioritizing effective prevention programs to reduce the burden of high blood pressure.
authors.affiliation: Modeling of Noncommunicable Diseases Research Center, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran; Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran. Electronic address: poorolajal@umsha.ac.ir.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Poorolajal
authors.affiliation: Department of Diseases Control and Prevention, Vice-chancellor of Health Services, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: f_farbakhsh@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Farbakhsh
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran; Research Center for Health Sciences, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran. Electronic address: mahjub@umsha.ac.ir.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mahjub
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine & Development Unit of Clinical Researches, Beheshti Hospital, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran. Electronic address: abiderafsh@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bidarafsh
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran. Electronic address: ebrahim_babaee@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Babaee
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000032:analysis*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005215:Fasting / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology*; D007492:Iran / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D049629:Waist-Hip Ratio
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose
keywords: Blood pressure; Body mass index; Cross-sectional studies; Diabetes mellitus; Hypertension; Waist-hip ratio