Open AccessAssociation between abdominal obesity and increased risk for the development of hypertension regardless of physical activity: A nationwide population‐based study
Author(s) -
Rhee EunJung,
Cho JungHwan,
Kwon Hyemi,
Park SeEun,
Jung JinHyung,
Han KyungDo,
Park YongGyu,
Park Hye Soon,
Kim YangHyun,
Yoo SoonJib,
Lee WonYoung
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the journal of clinical hypertension
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1751-7176
pISSN - 1524-6175
DOI - 10.1111/jch.13389
Subject(s) - medicine , abdominal obesity , waist , obesity , confounding , confidence interval , hazard ratio , population , physical therapy , environmental health
The presence of abdominal obesity and lack of physical activity are both risk factors for the development of hypertension. The aim of this study was to analyze the risk of developing hypertension according to baseline waist circumference (WC). In total, 16 312 476 non‐hypertensive participants who were covered by the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) from 2009 to 2012 in Korea were included in the study. The participants were divided into six groups according to the level of baseline WC with a 5‐cm interval starting from 80 cm in men and 75 cm in women. The risk for the future development of hypertension was assessed in 2015 using the claims data on the diagnosis of hypertension and prescription of anti‐hypertensive medications. Approximately 7.8% of the participants developed hypertension over a median follow‐up of 5.48 years. The proportion of participants who developed hypertension significantly increased from 4.2% in the WC level 1% to 17.5% in the WC level 6. After adjusting for confounding factors, level 6 of the baseline WC had a higher hazard ratio (HR) for the development of hypertension among the 6 levels of baseline with level 3 as the reference (1736; 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.72‐1.753). The participants with abdominal obesity had a significantly higher HR than those without abdominal obesity regardless of whether they engage in high‐ or moderate‐intensity physical intensity (1.741; 95% CI: 1.718‐1.764). WC had a linear association with the development of hypertension based on this large nationwide population‐based cohort study, which was not influenced by physical activity.