Prevalencia de sobrepeso, obesidad y su relación con hipertrigliceridemia en docentes de la Universidad Técnica de Machala, 2024.

Abstract

Introduction: Obesity is a disease characterized by excess body mass and metabolic alterations such as elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels, representing a risk for the development of cardiovascular diseases. The prevalence of obesity and overweight in Ecuador is high in university teachers, generating concern about its implications for public health. Objective: The aim of this study was to analyze the prevalence of overweight and obesity and their relationship with hypertriglyceridemia in teachers of the Faculty of Chemistry and Health Sciences of the Technical University of Machala, as well as to estimate CVR. Materials and Methods: A retrospective, cross-sectional, descriptive-analytical study was carried out using clinical histories from the database of the Occupational Safety, Health and Risk Unit. The determination of obesity and/or overweight by means of BMI and CTI and the calculation of Cardiovascular Risk (Gaziano without Laboratory and HEART SCORE in the Americas) was performed in Microsoft Excel Office, while the comparative analysis with hypertriglyceridemia and triglycerides was performed by means of non-parametric tests in IBM SPSS Statistics and JAMOVI. Results: According to the BMI, 39.29 % of the teachers were overweight and 36.61 % obese, while the CTI showed 27.68 % overweight and 51.79 % obese. The CTI showed a higher correlation with abdominal perimeter (p= 0.916), being a better indicator of central adiposity. Obesity was more frequent in women (28 %) than in men (24 %). Hypertriglyceridemia was similar between sexes (13 % in men and 12 % in women) and was more related to obesity than to overweight. Regarding cardiovascular risk, both the Gaziano method and the HEART SCORE showed that about 75 % of the teachers had low risk, while the rest presented moderate, high or very high risk. Conclusions: The university teaching population showed a high prevalence of overweight and obesity, with a high proportion of obese teachers with hypertriglyceridemia. While TG levels tended to be slightly elevated the higher the degree of overweight. In addition, both methods of cardiovascular risk estimation were useful and effective in determining similar significant proportions of teachers with CVR at 10 years.