Prevalence of anthropometric and cardiovascular risk factors among Bulgarian university students

The aim of this paper is to investigate the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and their conection with health risk anthropometrical factors among Bulgarian university students, the main in the South Bulgaria. The sample population of the study included total 386 young people, of which 303 females and 83 males, between 18-30 years of age i.e. the mean age is 21.3-21.4 years. They were from different regions of Bulgaria, mainly from Southern Bulgaria.The study was conducted transversally in the period between 2015 and 2017. For each person the weight, height, waist circumference and blood pressure were measured. On this base the body mass index and waist to height ratio were calculated by formulas. Underweight was defined as BMI< 18.5 kg/m2, overweight as BMI 25-29.9 kg/m2 and obesity as BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2. Waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) was used for evaluation of central (abdominal) obesity, that was defined as WHtR ≥ 0.5. The prehypertension was defined when SBP > 120 <139 and/or DBP > 80 <89 mmHg and hypertension when SBP ≥ 140 and/or DBP ≥ 90mmHg. The statistical processing of the data was done using software package Statistica 10.0 and SPSS 20.0 by means of descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The results show that the underweight occurs among 1.2% of the men and among 15.2% of the women, the overweight occur among 32.5% of men and 13.9% of women and obesity was found among 10.8% of the men and 8.6% of the women.Central obesity occur among 32% of males and 17% of females, independently of their nutritional status. The prehypertension occur among 46% of the men and 28% of the women.The hypertension found among 18% of the men and among 2% of the women. Among male students with prehypertension the overweight occur among 35.7%, and obesity occur among 10.7% of participants, while among hypertensive male the overweight and obesity occurs in 18.2% and 36.4%, respectively. In group of prehypertensive females 22.4% are overweight and 14.9% are obese. Hypertension occur among 20% of overweight and 40% of obese female students. In group of central obese male the prehypertension and hypertension occurs among 55% and 20%, respectively. Among central obese females 47.5% are prehypertensive and 7.5% are hypertensive. The results also show that the waist circumference has a serious potential to influence on the blood pressure level at an early adulthood in both sexes. The higher prevalence of elevated blood pressure, overweight, general and central obesity among Bulgarian university students maybe connect with factors such as a sex, hormonal status, hereditary burden and sexual differences in some lifestyle habits as a nutrition, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, individual physiological and biochemical status, psychological stress during student life and other. The prevalence of this risk factors among young Bulgarian adults needs of urgent attention and further evaluation because of the grave consequences of obesity and hypertension and because the hypertension and overweight is an important amendable risk factors in young life.