Evaluation of fasting lipid profile and glycated hemoglobin in obese subjects at university of calabar teaching hospital, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Obesity is a major public health issue which has been established to be a significant risk factor for several metabolic disorders such as impaired glucose tolerance, dyslipidaemia, and atherosclerosis. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the serum lipid profiles and glycated haemoglobin of obese and non-obese adults in Calabar, Nigeria. Methodology: This was a prospective comparative study that involved quantifying serum lipid profile and glycated hemoglobin (Hb) in seventy (70) obese subjects and thirty (30) non-obese control subjects. Results: The mean glycated Hb, Total Cholesterol (TC), Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) and Tryglyceride (TG) for obese subjects were 6.132.76%, 4.921.23mmol/L, 3.181.21mmol/L, 1.210.40mmol/L, 128.1412.65mmHg and 88.5611.87mmHg respectively. These values were significantly higher than those of the non-obese control subjects whose mean values for glycated Hb, TC, LDL and TG were 5.341.15%, 3.08 0.63mmol/L, 1.74 0.54mmol/L, 0.670.33mmol/L (p 0.05) respectively. The mean High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) value for obese subjects was 1.35 0.28mmol/L, this is significantly lower than that of the non-obese control subjects with a mean HDL of 1.77 0.41mmol/L (P 0.05). No significant difference was found on Very Low Density Lipoprotein (VLDL) between the two groups (P 0.05). A positive correlation between BMI, glycated Hb, TC, LDL was observed in obese subjects (r=0.341, 0.287, 0.393, P 0.05), while a negative correlation was observed between BMI and HDL (r= -0.147, P 0.05), WHR and HDL (r= -0.289, P 0.05). Conclusion: Findings from this study show that obese individuals have higher risk to develop cardiovascular related disorders and type II diabetes mellitus if appropriate interventions are not considered.