Thenmozhi R¹, Logeshwari V²

¹Professor and HOD,
²Final year post-graduate,
Department of Physiology,
Tirunelveli Medical College,
Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

• Background: Hypertension is a Major Public Health problem in Adult population, affecting one in four people in developing countries. Chronic Hypertension is a major risk factor for coronary artery disease, stroke, Heart failure, Peripheral vascular Disease, vision loss and Chronic kidney disease. Among the risk factors of Hypertension, obesity acts a modifiable and independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease in hypertension. Waist to Height ratio/waist to stature ratio is the simplest anthropometric measure which acts as a screening tool for detecting cardiovascular risk in Hypertensive patients with central obesity. Microalbuminuria reflects vascular endothelial dysfunction and is a marker for generalized atherosclerosis. Thus it serves as a screening test for identifying cardiovascular risk in Hypertensive patients.
• Aim: To Identify the prevalence of Microalbuminuria and correlating the results with Waist to Height ratio in Hypertensive patients.
• Materials and Methods: 50 Hypertensive patients and 50 Normotensives of age group between 25-60 yrs of both gender.
• Results: The Prevalence of microalbuminuria is about 38% among 50 hypertensives compared with 50 normotensives which is about only 6%.The p value was statistically highly significant(<0.001).There is also positive correlation between Microalbuminuria and Waist to Height ratio (W-Ht ratio).
• Conclusion: This study showed that, there is increased prevalence of microalbuminuria in hypertensives than normotensives and also positive correlation of results with waist to height ratio, which proves that both of which can be used as screening marker for early detection of cardiovascular disease in Hypertensive patients.

Keywords: atherothrombosis, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, microalbuminuria, screening marker, waist to height ratio