Risk of Suffering from Cardiovascular Diseases because of the Clustering of the Modifiable Cardiovascular Risk Factors in the Population Older than 15 years of a Health Care Center in Barcelona

Abstract

Background: Over recent decades, the death rate due to cardiovascular diseases has shown a downward trend in developed countries, as has also been the case in Spain. However, are still the leading cause of death. This study is aimed at studying the relationship between cardiovascular diseases and different modifiable cardiovascular risk factors related to their clustering. Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at an urban healthcare center, which included 2248 individuals ages 15 and above selected by simple random sampling of the medical record files. The risk of having some cardiovascular disease (ischemic cardiopathy, cerebrovascular disease or peripheral arteriopathy of lower limbs) was calculated in the form of an odds ration (OR) in relation to the clustering of the risk factors of smoking, high blood pressure, hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia and diabetes mellitus, adjusted by age, sex and risk factors. Results: The individuals studied had 224 cardiovascular diseases. For smoking, the OR as an isolated risk factor was 1.5 (95% CI: 1.0-2.2) and 1.6 (95% CI: 0.9-2.5) with the clustering with the other four risk factors; with high blood pressure, respectively of 2.1 (95% CI: 1.5-2.9) and 1.7 (95% CI: 1.1-2.6); with hypercholesterolemia, respectively of 1.7 (95% CI: 1.2-2.4) and 1.6 (95% CI: 1.1-2.4); and with hypertriglyceridemia, respectively of 1.8(95% CI: 1.2-2.8) and 1.3 (95% CI: 0.8-2.1). The OR s showed a similar behavior on layering by each cardiovascular disease, although the highest OR s (2.4 -3.1 range) corresponded to the clustering of diabetes mellitus and smoking. Conclusions: The risk of having cardiovascular diseases remains high with the clustering of cardiovascular risk factors, although differences among them are found to exist.