One-year stability of cardiovascular diseases risk factors in Portuguese youngters

Abstract

The purposes of the present study were to analyze the stability of biological risk factors for CVD (blood pressure [BP], percentage of fat mass [%FM], total cholesterol [TC]) and one behavioral/life style risk factor (physical activity [PA]), as well as to study the stability of biological risk factors clustering. The sample comprised 325 males and 367 females, aged 8-15 years old. Participants were classified as being "at risk" according to age and sex adjusted 4th quartile or the first for PA. Three biological risk factors (%FM, SBP and TC) showed higher stability (one-year interval; r = 0.9-0.5) than DBP (r = 0.3) and PAI (r = 0.3). It can be concluded that 46% of subjects with two and/or three biological risk factors at the first measurement remained with the same number of biological risk factors in the second measurement.