Abstract
Objective: The main objective of the study was to evaluate metabolic derangements among Bahraini adults in relation to body mass index (BMI).
Methods: A cross sectional design was used on a convenient sample of Bahraini patients in the age group of 20-65 attending King Hamad University Hospital (KHUH)
outpatient clinics of neurology, dermatology and respiratory between August2021 and September 2021. Participant’s data was checked using the electronic KHUHpatients record and further verified through a phone call. Furthermore, Patients who met the inclusion criteria and consented to the research were approached on their scheduled appointment day and anthropometric, blood pressure measurements along with blood investigations were obtained. Then data were analyzed and interpreted using a statistical significance of less than 0.05. A total of 194 participants were investigated upon completion of data collection from the electronic records, phone interview and procedures carried out during the appointments. According to the findings, the prevalence of obesity among the participants was 39.2% with age and marital status being the only two variables having statistical significance with BMI (P< 0.001). On the
other hand, statistical significance with BMI was achieved with all the metabolic variables, with the strongest association being between obesity and low- density
lipoprotein (LDL-C). It was demonstrated that among obese individuals the percentage of hypertension was 28.9% (P=0.002), pre-diabetes was 36% (P < 0.001), abnormal total cholesterol was 47.4% (P=0.006), abnormal triglycerides (TG) was 25% (P=0.002), abnormal LDL-C 100% and abnormal high density lipoprotein (HDL- C) was 31.6% (P=0.009).
Conclusion: The findings of this study revealed that obese individuals demonstrated higher incidence of metabolic abnormalities than their under/normal weight counterparts.
This demonstratesthat BMI has a significant negative impact on metabolic parameters that increases as BMI rises and worsens over time.