Gender differences in the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its components among adults with disabilities based on a community health check up data.
Metabolic syndrome hits adults with disabilities differently by sex—target your health screens accordingly.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lin et al. (2013) ran a one-time health check-up in Taiwan.
They looked at adults with disabilities who live in the community.
Doctors measured waist, blood pressure, cholesterol, and sugar.
What they found
About one in five adults had metabolic syndrome.
Women carried more belly fat and low good cholesterol.
Men had higher blood pressure and triglycerides.
How this fits with other research
Shepherd et al. (2021) saw the same male-heavy heart-risk pattern in older autistic adults without intellectual disability.
Mikulovic et al. (2014) found the same female-heavy obesity pattern in French adults with ID living in group homes.
Li et al. (2018) added a price tag: obesity adds roughly $2,500 per year to health-care costs for adults with IDD.
Why it matters
You now know gender shapes risk.
Screen women for waist size and HDL first.
Screen men for blood pressure and triglycerides first.
Share the numbers with your medical partner so referrals land on the right tests.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Metabolic syndrome is highly prevalent in society gradually and has important implications for public health in recent years. The present study aims to examine the gender effect on the prevalence of metabolic syndrome among adults with disabilities. A cross-sectional study was conduct to analyze annual health check-up chart of 419 people with disabilities whose age ≥ 20 years in east Taiwan. We used to diagnose the metabolic syndrome was defined by the Taiwan Bureau of Health Promotion as the presence of three or more of the following five components: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high fasting glucose level, high triglyceride level, and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level. The results showed that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 19.3% in the study subjects (16.8% in men and 23.1% in women; p = 0.110). Our study also indicated that the genders were significantly different in the followings (men vs. women): abdominal obesity (33.2% vs. 50.9%; p<0.001), high blood pressure (36.4% vs. 23.7%; p = 0.006), high fasting glucose level (18.4 vs. 14.8%; p = 0.334), high triglyceride level (24.0% vs. 14.2%; p = 0.014) and HDL-C (21.6% vs. 35.5%; p = 0.002) among the sample. To prevent the metabolic syndrome occurrence and consequences, the study suggests that the health authorities should put greater efforts to address the metabolic syndrome components, particularly in higher rates of obesity-related health conditions to avoid significant health and health care costs in the future.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2013 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2012.09.001