Association between Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension with Anthropometric Indicators in Older Adults: Results of the Mexican Health Survey, 2000

Abstract: Objective: To determine the association between anthropometric indicators of adiposity with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and hypertension (HTN) in older adults. Design: Cross-sectional study of participants of the Mexican Health Survey 2000 (MHS). Setting: Mexico, subjects recruited from the general community. Participants: The analytic sample included 7,322 adults who were ?60 years of age at the time of the survey. T2DM data were available on 6,994 individuals, who represent 95.5% of the original sample; data on HTN was available on 6,268 subjects, which accounted for 86.5% of the original sample. Measurements: Type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension, as well as anthropometric indicators including body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and conicity index (CI). Results: The prevalence of T2DM and HTN in this age group was 34.3% and 73.9%, respectively. After adjusting for other variables, the association between high WC and T2DM (OR=1.59 95%CI=1.26-2.01, P <0.001) was stronger than the association with overweight (OR=1.26, 95%CI= 1.01-1.58, P=0.04) and obesity (OR=1.38, 95%CI= 1.08-1.79, P<0.01) using BMI, and slightly higher than tertile 2 of the CI (OR=1.49, 95%CI=1.20-1.88, P< 0.01), while tertile 3 showed a stronger association with T2DM (OR=1.60, 95%CI=1.22-2.08, P<0.001). However, the association between obesity and HTN measured by BMI (OR=1.98, 95%CI=1.48-2.65, P< 0.001) was stronger than what was observed with overweight (OR=1.42, 95%CI 1.13-1.77, P<0.01), with high WC (OR=1.62, 95%CI=1.25-2.10, P<0.001) and tertiles 2 and 3 of the CI (OR=1.23, 95%CI=0.99-1.55, P= 0.09); (OR=1.53, 95%CI= 1.16-2.03, P< 0.01) respectively. Conclusions: BMI and abdominal obesity are significantly and independently associated with an increase in the prevalence of T2DM and HTN among older Mexican adults.