Body fat composition and dyslipidemia among students at the Dar es salaam University College of Education, Tanzania

Abstract

Background: Obesity, defined as excessive body fat accumulation, has a significant role on the occurrence of cardiometabolic dysregulation. Obesity is associated with dyslipidemia, impaired glucose metabolism and hypertension all of which exacerbate atherosclerosis. Accurate determination of body fat composition is the mainstay of early detection of obesity and prevention of its cardiometaboliccomplications. The BMI, a commonly used surrogate marker for adiposity, only measures weight relative to height and does not provide information on excessive body fat contribution to the overall body weight. Bielectric impedance analysis isone of the non invasive methods used to measure BF%. However, whether BMI or BF% predicts better cardiovascular risks remained to be answered. Objective: To determine and compare body fat composition by body mass index and by body fat percentage and corelate it with dyslipidemia, hypertension and diabetes mellitus among DUCE students. Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study among DUCE students. The Body fat percentage (BF%) was estimated by a bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) method and theBMI was measured using standardized method. Blood pressure measurement, blood samples for lipid profiles and blood glucose estimation were taken from each student. SPSS version 23 was used for data analysis. Pearson Chi square statistics test used to compare group differences for categorical variables. BMI and BF% prediction of cardiovascular risks were examined using logistic regression analysis Results: Of the 275 students, 23(8.4%) were obese by BF% criteria andbased on BMI criteria, 14(5.1%) students were found to be obese. BF% to an extent correlated with BMI on measuring obesity (r=0.658, p<0.001). The overall prevalence of dyslipidemia was 27.3%, hypertension 11.6% and diabetes mellitus was 2.9%.Students with high BF% had 3.9 times greater odds of being hypertensive and 13 times greater odds of being diabetic than students with normal or low BF%, on the other hand students with high BMI had 6.4 times greater odds of having dyslipidemia than students with normal and below normal BMI. Conclusion: This study revealed a high prevalence of obesity and dyslipidemia among a relatively young adult population. There was a correlation between BF% and BMI on measuring obesity which implied that an increase in BMI corresponded also with an increase in BF%. However, high BF% was associated with the occurrence of hypertension and diabetes mellitus, while high BMI was associated with the occurrence of dyslipidemia. Even though both BF% and BMI were somehow comparable in obesity determination, they were different in predicting the associated cardiovascular risk factors. It is therefore recommended that more studies be carried out in other specific as well as the general population to further describe how the two methods work.