Is there a higher cardiovascular disease risk in Japanese-Brazilians?

Há um risco maior de doença cardiovascular em nipo-brasileiros?

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Is there a higher cardiovascular disease risk in Japanese-Brazilians?

Há um risco maior de doença cardiovascular em nipo-brasileiros?

Ömer Kurt^I; Sevket Balta^II; Mustafa Cakar^I; Sait Demirkol^II; Muharrem Akhan^I; Erol Arslan^I

^IGulhane Medical Academy, Department of Internal Medicine Ankara/Turkey

^IIGulhane Medical Academy, Department of Cardiology, Ankara/Turkey

^{Correspondence to}

We read the article "Predictors Cardiovascular risk in Japanese-Brazilian subjects" written by Gomes and cols. with interest (1). The authors intended to evaluate the prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Japanese-Brazilian subjects. We found the study very valuable because it discusses an important public health issue and builds awareness.

CVD is one of the most common causes of death worldwide (2). Therefore, assessment of CVD risk factors is important to prevent deaths in the population at risk. Metabolic syndrome (MS) consists in abdominal obesity, impaired glucose tolerance, elevated triglyceride levels, reduced high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels, hypertension, and it is mostly accompanied by a proinflammatory picture. Subjects with MS are at increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (3). The incidence of metabolic syndrome varies according to the age and there is a positive correlation between age and MS prevalence (4). In the present study, mean age of the patients was relatively high (56.7 ± 15.9). Prevalence of MS was defined as 47 (35.8%) in total, 30 (63.8%) in women, and 17 (36.2%) in men; and the difference regarding gender was not statistically significant (p = 0.31). However, prevalence of MS in Brazil is 29.8% (5). In addition, it was estimated to be less frequent in Japan; 25.3% for men and 10.6% for women in the 2008 National Nutritional and Health Survey (6).

Waist circumference was measured as a MS criteria in the study. Some newer anthropometric measurements are defined in the literature, such as waist to height ratio (WHtR), body adiposity index (BAI), and visceral adiposity index (VAI). WHtR has been suggested as the best discriminator for hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidemia by Lee and cols. (7). VAI is postulated to be a good indicator of visceral adiposity and insulin sensitivity. In addition, a high correlation between BAI and percentage of body fat was defined by Bergman and cols. (8). We think that it would better if these parameters were also mentioned in the study.

Received on Jan/16/2013

Accepted on Mar/21/2013

Disclosure: no potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

• 1. Gomes PM, Andrade RCG, Figueiredo RC, Pace AE, Fabbro AL, Franco LJ, et al. Cardiovascular risk in Japanese. Arq Bras Endocrinol Metab. 2012;56:608-13.
• 2. Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults (Adult Treatment Panel III) final report. Circulation. 2002;106:3143-421.
• 3. Grundy SM, Cleeman JI, Daniels SR, Donato KA, Eckel RH, Franklin BA, et al. Diagnosis and management of the metabolic syndrome: an American Heart Association/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Scientific Statement. Circulation. 2005;112:2735-52.
• 4. Stabelini Neto A, Bozza R, Ulbrich A, Mascarenhas LP, Boguszewski MC, Campos Wd. [Metabolic syndrome in adolescents of different nutritional status]. Arq Bras Endocrinol Metabol. 2012;56:104-9.
• 5. Salaroli LB, Barbosa GC, Mill JG, Molina MC. [Prevalence of metabolic syndrome in population-based study, Vitória, ES-Brazil]. Arq Bras Endocrinol Metabol. 2007;51:1143-52.
• ⁶
  Ministry of Health, L. and W. of J. A summary of the National Nutritional and Health Survey of 2008. (2008).
• 7. Lee CM, Huxley RR, Wildman RP, Woodward M. Indices of abdominal obesity are better discriminators of cardiovascular risk factors than BMI: a meta-analysis. J Clin Epidemiol. 2008;61:646-53.
• 8. Bergman RN. A better index of body adiposity. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.). 2012;20:1135.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  09 Sept 2013
• Date of issue
  Aug 2013