CARDIOVASCULAR RISK FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH DYNAPENIA IN THE OLDER ADULTS

Abstract

The study aimed to identify cardiovascular risk factors associated with dynapenia in the older adults. This is an epidemiological,
cross-sectional research conducted with older people from Aiquara-BA. The cardiovascular risk factors evaluated were: gender, age group,
ethnicity, level of physical activity, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, body adiposity index, blood glucose level and lipid profile
(triglycerides; total cholesterol; High-Density Lipoprotein cholesterol - HDL-c and Low-Density Lipoprotein cholesterol - LDL-c). The
diagnosis of dynapenia was stratified by sex based on the following handgrip strength values: 24.87 kgf (men) and 18.25 kgf (women).
Associative analysis was verified with Person's chi-square test. However, for expected frequencies less than five (n < 5), Fisher's exact test was
used. The significance level adopted in all analyses was 5.0% (p ≤ 0.05). A total of 109 older individuals (55.0% women) with a mean age of
71.0 ± 7.4 participated in the study. The percentage of hypertensive older adults was 45.0%, smokers or former smokers 65.0%, insufficiently
active 17.1%, with high waist circumference 46.8%, high waist-to-hip ratio 67.0%, obese 44.0%, with diabetes mellitus 20.4%,
hypercholesterolemia 59.3%, with low HDL-c 36.5% and high LDL-c 44.0%. The prevalence of dinapenia was 24.8% (women 25.0% and
men 24.5%). Moreover, a higher prevalence of dynapenia was found among the longevous (50.0%) and among the insufficiently active (55.6%)
(p < 0.05). We conclude that, among the older adults residents in Aiquara-BA, the insufficient level of physical activity and advanced age were
associated with dynapenia.