Prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors among adults without obvious cardiovascular disease in a rural community in Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular disease worldwide is largely driven by modifiable risk factors. This study sought to identify and determine the prevalence of traditional cardiovascular risk factors according to sex in inhabitants of a rural community in a developing country. METHODS This cross-sectional study included participants aged ≥40 years in the rural community of Aaye Ekiti, Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria. All participants who met the inclusion criteria were drawn from the 161 households in the community. Data on the following were collected: arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity, dyslipidaemia, smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and sociodemographic parameters. These were analysed with SPSS version 16.0 software. RESULTS The 104 participants (33 male, 71 female) had a mean age (± standard deviation) of 66.77 ± 12.06 years (range, 40-88 years). The majority of the participants (56.7%) were aged 60-79 years. Hypertension was present in 66.4%, diabetes mellitus in 4.8%, abdominal obesity in 38.46%, smoking in 2.9%, physical inactivity in 29.8%, and high alcohol consumption in 1%. Dyslipidaemia, as represented by low HDL-C, occurred in 30%. There were borderline high levels of TC in 4.5%, LDL-C in 1.1%, and TG in 12.5%, but no subject had a high level. Abdominal obesity, alcohol consumption and smoking were statistically significantly associated with sex. CONCLUSION In this study, traditional cardiovascular risk factors, apart from hypertension, obesity, physical inactivity and low HDL-C had a low prevalence in the rural Nigerian community. However, the high prevalence of hypertension in this poor community suggests a high risk of a future cardiovascular event.