Prevalence of coronary artery disease risk factors in Saudi Children

ABSTRACT

Two hundred and twenty boys, 7 to 12 years of age, were subjected to a comprehensive medical, anthropometric, and physiological evaluation to assess the prevalence of coronary artery disease risk factors. These risk factors include obesity, blood lipids and lipoproteins, blood glucose, blood pressure, cardiorespiratory fitness, and physical activity level. The results of this study indicate that there are no significant age-related differences in total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-C/cholesterol ratio, or blood glucose. No significant hypertension was detected among the subjects. Using relative body fat, 15.6% of the boys were considered obese. Body fat percent showed significant inverse relationships with cardiorespiratory fitness, HDL-cholesterol, HDL-C/cholesterol ratio, and was related positively to systolic and diastolic blood pressures but not to total cholesterol. Blood pressure was not related to cholesterol or triglyceride levels. The findings of this study also showed that 22.9% of the boys exceeded cholesterol level of 5.2 mmol/L, 26.4% had triglyceride level above 1.4 mmol/L, 15.4% had a LDL-cholesterol level above 3.4 mmol/L, and 4.0% had HDL-cholesterol below .96 mmol/L. We conclude that a considerable percentage of the tested schoolchildren between the ages of 7 and 12 years have one or more coronary artery disease risk factors