Prehypertension prevalence and its association with neck and abdominal obesity in disease-free young adults

Introduction: Hypertension and obesity are threatening facts of public health in the Turkish community; hence it is lifesaving to carry out blood pressure and upper body measurements for early determination of cardiovascular risks. The aim of this study was to determine prevalence of prehypertension and its association with neck and abdominal obesity in disease-free young adults. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted in an urban public university of Turkey. The anthropometric and blood pressure measurements were obtained from 704 healthy disease-free young adults. Comparisons among blood pressure groups were done with the Chi-square test. Multivariate regression analysis was carried out to determine risk factors for prehypertension. The Pearson correlation was employed to determine correlation between the prehypertension and anthropometric measurements. P < 0.05 values were considered as statistically significant. Results: The overall prevalence of prehypertension was 49.0%, 53.1% in males and 44.9% in females. Prevalence of prehypertension was significantly higher in males comparison to females (p < 0.001). The overall prevalence of neck obesity, abdominal obesity and overweight/obesity was 18.2%, 6.1% and 23.0% respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that neck circumference was the strongest predictor of prehypertension among other obesity indicators. Prehypertension was positively correlated with neck circumference, waist circumference and Body Mass Index for both sexes (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Public health interventions are needed to prevent prehypertension and obesity in young adults. Further research should focus on determining prehypertension, neck and abdominal obesity which will decrease probable cardiovascular risks in young populations.