Association between diabetes mellitus and hypertension with anthropometric indicators in older adults: results of the Mexican Health Survey, 2000

Abstract

Objective: To determine the association between anthropometric indicators of adiposity with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and hypertension (HTN) in older adults.

Design: Cross-sectional study of participants of the Mexican Health Survey 2000 (MHS).

Setting: Mexico, subjects recruited from the general community.

Participants: The analytic sample included 7,322 adults who were > or = 60 years of age at the time of the survey. T2DM data were available on 6,994 individuals, who represent 95.5% of the original sample; data on HTN was available on 6,268 subjects, which accounted for 86.5% of the original sample.

Measurements: Type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension, as well as anthropometric indicators including body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and conicity index (CI).

Results: The prevalence of T2DM and HTN in this age group was 34.3% and 73.9%, respectively. After adjusting for other variables, the association between high WC and T2DM (OR = 1.59 95%CI = 1.26-2.01, P < 0.001) was stronger than the association with overweight (OR = 1.26, 95%CI = 1.01-1.58, P = 0.04) and obesity (OR = 1.38, 95%CI = 1.08-1.79, P < 0.01) using BMI, and slightly higher than tertile 2 of the CI (OR = 1.49, 95%CI = 1.20-1.88, P < 0.01), while tertile 3 showed a stronger association with T2DM (OR = 1.60, 95%CI = 1.22-2.08, P < 0.001). However, the association between obesity and HTN measured by BMI (OR = 1.98, 95%CI = 1.48-2.65, P < 0.001) was stronger than what was observed with overweight (OR = 1.42, 95%CI 1.13-1.77, P < 0.01), with high WC (OR = 1.62, 95%CI = 1.25-2.10, P < 0.001) and tertiles 2 and 3 of the CI (OR = 1.23, 95%CI = 0.99-1.55, P = 0.09); (OR = 1.53, 95%CI = 1.16-2.03, P < 0.01) respectively.

Conclusions: BMI and abdominal obesity are significantly and independently associated with an increase in the prevalence of T2DM and HTN among older Mexican adults.