Cut off values of waist circumference and associated cardiovascular risk in Egyptians.

Background: Recent guidelines stressed the need to adopt different values of waist circumference (WC) measurements to define abdominal obesity in different ethnic groups. The aim of this study is to identify WC cutoff points in normotensive and hypertensive subjects which are diagnostic of abdominal obesity in a Middle Eastern population and the prevalence of abdominal obesity in a nationwide sample.

Methods: Data were collected during phase-2 of the Egyptians National Hypertension Project survey.