Abdominal obesity is known to predict risk of both diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) more accurately than total adiposity. The International Day for Evaluation of Abdominal obesity (IDEA) study was designed to evaluate the prevalence of abdominal obesity and the relationship between anthropometric measures (waist circumference and body mass index) and of co-morbidities in a large cohort of patients managed by primary care physicians. Since there are established regional differences in traditional CVD risk factors across Europe, the aim of this paper was to examine the impact of adiposity on the frequency of diabetes and CVD in 91 246 patients from three European regions. Results showed that the impact of adiposity on diabetes was remarkably similar across the different regions of Europe even though differences in socio-economic, demographic and risk factors were observed. As for the impact of adiposity on CVD, a tight relationship was observed within each individual region, despite the fact that there were strong regional differences in CVD prevalence. For instance, in both men and women, for any given level of abdominal adiposity, the rate of CVD in Eastern Europe was two-fold higher compared with North-western Europe (p<0.0001) and 2.5-fold higher compared with Southern Europe (p<0.0001). Moreover, WC predicted increased risks of CVD and diabetes after adjustment for age and BMI (p<0.0001). These findings clearly show that despite regional differences in CVD and CVD risk factors prevalence across Europe, abdominal obesity is associated with both diabetes and CVD. Thus, abdominal obesity represents another risk burden all across Europe.
Documentation centre