Manifestation of Non Communicable Disease Risks among Overtly Undernourished Young (<30 Yrs) Rural Adults in India-Pune Rural Cohort

Abstract

Rural population, where widespread under nutrition with obesity meagre is prevalent, is relatively less studied for prevalence of NCDs and the associated risk factors. Young rural adults (<30 yrs) (males 449 and females 267) were examined for anthropometry and blood pressure. Subjects were underweight (45.3±7.9 kg females; 56.4±9.1 kg males), short (153.0±5.5 cm females; 166.3±6.2 cm males) and thin (BMI 19.4±2.8 kg/m² females; 20.3±2.9 kg/m² males) as adults. The prevalence of overweight (BMI±25Kg/m²) was low (4.1% females; 6.5% males) while obesity was negligible but under nutrition (BMI<18.5 kg/m²) was evident (43.4% females; 29% males). Prevalence of hypertension (HTN) was significantly higher in males than in females (16.3% vs 6.4%; p<0.000) but was not true for dyslipidemia or high sugar. The prevalence of HTN and dyslipidemia increased significantly from lower tertile to higher tertile for all the indicators (BMI, waist-WC, waist-hip ratio-WHR, body fat-BF, abdominal circumference-AC), only among males. Moreover, the significant risk was observed at much lower level of BMI (>18.9 kg/m²) compared to conventional cut off (>23 kg/m²). Within the narrow range of BMI, central obesity increased with BMI, but was not responsible for high prevalence of HTN while short adult height (<166.1 cm) was, indicating early origins of HTN. These observations underscore the need for improving hypertension screening and treatment in primary health centres of rural areas as undernourished individuals exposed to nutritional transition are believed to experience much higher risk of hypertension compared to urban populations.