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. 2020 Nov 7;20(1):1665.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-020-09757-4.

High prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in adults living in Greece: the EMENO National Health Examination Survey

Giota Touloumi  1 , Argiro Karakosta  2 , Natasa Kalpourtzi  2 , Magda Gavana  3 , Apostolos Vantarakis  4 , Maria Kantzanou  2 , Christos Hajichristodoulou  5 , Grigoris Chlouverakis  6 , Grigoris Trypsianis  7 , Paraskevi V Voulgari  8 , Yannis Alamanos  9 , Konstantinos Makrilakis  10   11 , Stavros Liatis  10   11 , Stylianos Chatzipanagiotou  12 , George Stergiou  13 ; EMENO study group
Collaborators, Affiliations

High prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in adults living in Greece: the EMENO National Health Examination Survey

Giota Touloumi et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Nationwide data on cardiovascular risk factors prevalence is lacking in Greece. This work presents the findings of the national health examination survey EMENO (2013-2016) regarding the prevalence of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, obesity and smoking.

Methods: A random sample of adults (≥18 years) was drawn by multistage stratified random sampling based on 2011 Census. All EMENO participants with ≥1 measurement of interest [blood pressure (BP), fasting glucose, HbA1c, total cholesterol (TC), Body Mass Index (BMI)] were included. Hypertension was defined as BP ≥ 140/90 mmHg and/or antihypertensive treatment; diabetes as fasting glucose≥126 mg/dL and/or HbA1c ≥ 6.5% or self-reported diabetes; hypercholesterolemia as TC ≥ 190 mg/dL. Sampling weights were applied to adjust for study design and post-stratification weights to match sample age and sex distribution to population one. Non-response was adjusted by inverse probability weighting.

Results: Of 6006 EMENO participants, 4822 were included (51.5% females, median age:47.9 years). The prevalence of hypertension was 39.2%, higher in men (42.4%) than in women (36.1%); of hypercholesterolemia 60.2%, similar in men (59.5%) and women (60.9%); of diabetes 11.6%, similar men (12.4%) and women (10.9%); of obesity 32.1%, higher in women (33.5% vs 30.2%), although in subjects aged 18-40 year it was higher in men; of current smoking 38.2%, higher in men (44.0%) than in women (32.7%). The prevalence of all risk factors increased substantially with age, except smoking, which followed an inverse U shape.

Conclusions: The burden of cardiovascular risk factors among Greek adults is alarming. There is considerable preventive potential and actions at health care and societal level are urgently needed.

Keywords: Cardiovascular disease; Diabetes; Health examination survey; Hypercholesterolemia; Hypertension; Obesity; Population-based study.

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Conflict of interest statement

GT has received EU and National resources grants as well as a grant from the Hellenic Diabetes Association, all paid to her institution, to support this study and grants unrelated to this study and paid to her institution from Gilead Sciences Europe, UCL, ECDC, EU, University of Bristol, Harvard University, and National funds; KM and SL have received grants through Hellenic Diabetes Association supporting the current study from Boehringer Ingelheim, Roche, Abbott, MSD and through their Academic center unrelated to this study from Novo Nordisc Hellas, Sanofi Hellas, Astra Zeneca, Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim, Pharmasery Lilly. GS has received consultations fees and research grants by Microlife AG. The rest of the authors declared that they do not have anything to disclose regarding funding or conflict of interest with respect to this manuscript.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Prevalence (95% CI) of cardiovascular risk factors: hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, current smoking, in the general adult population, by age group and sex
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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