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Prevalence of obesity and overweight in an adult population of Tehran metropolis

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Abstract

Purpose

Obesity is a chronic low-grade inflammatory condition with increasing global prevalence and is associated with cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of obesity in the Tehran cohort study (TeCS) population.

Methods

We used the data collected by systematic random sampling during the recruitment phase of TeCS. The data comprised 4215 households from all districts of the Tehran metropolis, from which 8296 adults aged ≥ 35 years participated between May 2016 and February 2019. Sociodemographic data, medical history, laboratory tests, and anthropometric measurements were gathered from the participants. Participants with missing data were excluded from the final analysis. Finally, the data was analyzed using SPSS version 23, and distribution maps were created by Stata 14.2.

Results

A total of 8211 participants (53.9% women) with an average age of 53.7 ± 12.6 years were studied. The age-weighted prevalence of overweight and obese among women was (37.5% [95% confidence interval (CI): 34.5, 40.6] and 35.5% [95% CI: 32.6 -38.6]) compared to men (47% [95% CI: 43.6, 50.3] and 22.9% [95% CI: 20.1 -25.8]). The prevalence of substantially increased risk of metabolic complications (SIRMC) based on waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) was 49.2% (95% CI: 46.3 -52.2) and 75.5% (95% CI: 72.7 -78.1) respectively.

Conclusions

The prevalence of obesity in Tehran (29.3%) was much higher than in previous reports, particularly among older people, women, and socioeconomically underdeveloped districts. After age 55, more than 80% of women had SIRMC compared to 30% of men.

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Data availability

The dataset of the present study is not publicly available due to the current policy of the Tehran Cohort Study; however, it is available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Abbreviations

ANOVA :

Analysis of Variance

BMI :

Body Mass Index

CI :

Confidence Interval

CVD :

Cardiovascular Disease

DALYs :

Disability-Adjusted Life Years

FBS :

Fasting Blood Sugar

HC :

Hip Circumference

IPA :

Insufficient Physical Activity

OR :

Odds Ratio

SD :

Standard Deviation

SIRMC :

Substantially Increased Risk of Metabolic Complications

TeCS :

Tehran Cohort Study

WC :

Waist Circumference

WHO :

World Health Organization

WHR :

Waist-to-Hip Ratio

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely appreciate the efforts of Tehran Heart Center's nurses and administrative staff. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Dr. Kamran Yazdani for his valuable feedback and suggestions on our manuscript. The authors also want to thank the participants of the Tehran Cohort Study for their cooperation.

Funding

This work was supported by the Iranian Ministry of Health [Grant No. 1296006, program 1603003000] and the Tehran Heart Center [Internal fund].

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tehran Heart Center, Cardiovascular Diseases Research Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Akbar Shafiee, Sepehr Nayebirad, Mohammad Sadeq Najafi, Arash Jalali, Farshid Alaeddini, Kaveh Hosseini, Saeed Sadeghian, Mohammadali Boroumand & Abbasali Karimi

  2. Cardiac Primary Prevention Research Center, Cardiovascular Diseases Research Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Arash Jalali, Farzad Masoudkabir & Ali Vasheghani-Farahani

  3. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Arash Jalali

  4. Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    Soheil Saadat

  5. Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Oscar H. Franco

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  1. Akbar Shafiee
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  2. Sepehr Nayebirad
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Contributions

AS and KH hypothesized this work.

AS, SN, and MSN wrote the main manuscript.

AS, SN, AJ, and MSN prepared the figures.

AJ cleaned the data and did the statistical analysis.

AS, SN, AJ, AVF, OHF, and MSN revised the manuscript.

AJ, FA, and SoS designed the cohort.

FA and FM contributed to data collection and management.

SaS, MB, AK, and OHF supervised the project. All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arash Jalali.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The Tehran University of Medical Sciences ethics committee approved the TeCS cohort (IR.TUMS.MEDICINE.REC.1399.074). All participants provided written informed consent at the start of the study. The study was carried out according to the Helsinki Declaration.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

None declared.

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Publisher's Note

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Akbar Shafiee and Sepehr Nayebirad contributed equally to this manuscript and should be considered the first authors.

Key Messages

• According to the Tehran Cohort Study, the age and sex-weighted prevalence of obesity in Tehran was 29.3%.

• Obesity prevalence was remarkably higher in older people, women, and socioeconomically underdeveloped districts of Tehran.

• After age 55, more than 80% of the women had a substantially increased risk of metabolic complications compared to 30% of the men.

Supplementary Information

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Shafiee, A., Nayebirad, S., Najafi, M.S. et al. Prevalence of obesity and overweight in an adult population of Tehran metropolis. J Diabetes Metab Disord (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40200-023-01365-4

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