The metabolic syndrome in black hypertensive women--waist circumference more strongly related than body mass index.

Objective: To examine the association between measures of obesity and features of the metabolic syndrome in treated black female hypertensive subjects.
Design: Cross-sectional study.
Setting: An urban primary health care centre in Mamelodi, Pretoria.
Subjects: Women with hypertension and without known diabetes mellitus or secondary causes of hypertension. In total 124 women participated, with a mean age of 56.9 years (standard deviation (SD) 11.0) and mean body mass index (BMI) of 34.1 kg/m2 (SD 8.1).
Main Outcome Measures: Blood pressure, glucose, insulin and lipid levels.
Results: Waist circumference and waist-hip ratio were more strongly associated with insulin, uric acid, glucose and triglycerides than was BMI. Statistically significant associations were found between waist circumference and low high-density lipoprotein HDL cholesterol (standardised regression coefficient -0.006, standard error of the mean (SEM) 0.002), log triglycerides (0.007, SEM 0.003), uric acid (0.002, SEM 0.001) and log insulin (0.012, SEM 0.003). BMI was only significantly associated with uric acid (0.002, SEM 0.002) and log insulin (0.009, SEM 0.004).
Conclusion: In a group of black hypertensive women measures of central obesity were more strongly associated with components of the metabolic syndrome than BMI.