[Overweigth, obesity, metabolic syndrome and waist/height index in health staff].

Introduction: Health staff self-applied strategies are insufficiently to reduce cardiovascular risk factors. The aim of this article is to investigate the prevalence of overweight, obesity and metabolic syndrome and waist/height index on health staff.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study from January to April 2014 in 735 workers of the UMAE Specialties La Raza. A diagnosis of overweight and obesity was established according to WHO criteria and metabolic syndrome NCEP ATP-III. In 250 participants lipid profile and blood chemistry were obtained. Descriptive statistics was applied, chi square, Student t test or Kruskal-Wallis to compare groups.

Results: We included 496 women and 239 men (physicians, nurses and other workers). 38% were overweight; 22% had obesity. We found fasting hyperglycemia>126 mg/dl in 5.1%, between 100-126 mg/dl in 17.4%, hypertriglyceridemia in 40.4%; HDL cholesterol<40 mg/dl 66% in men and HDL cholesterol<50 mg/dl 51.4% in women. Waist measurement was 93±11 cm in men vs. 88±13 m in women. The waist/height index in the ideal weight group was 0.048±0.04, for overweight 0.55±0.04 and for obesity 0.65±0.064 (p<0.01). Metabolic syndrome prevalence was 30.6%, smoking 21.6% and alcohol consumption 35%.

Conclusions: The prevalence of obesity-overweight was 60% and metabolic syndrome 30%, making it necessary to take immediate actions to modify the lifestyle of health staff.