The prevalence of increased carotid intima-media thickness in the general employable population

The objective of the scientific work was to study the prevalence of increased carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) in the general employable population of Tomsk and to determine cardiovascular risk factors, explaining its variation to the greatest extent. With the currently recommended criteria and measuring technique, there was established, that the prevalence of increased cIMT in the population did not exceed 10%, showed quite rare occurrence among the individuals younger than 50 years old, whereas in the older ones it was characterized by the further increase with age, emerging in the every forth man and the every seventh woman. Beyond the age, variation of the prevalence in the population was explained by such risk factors as obesity, pulse blood pressure (BP), high density lipoproteins (HDL), regular smoking, and the role of the factors was not the same between men and women. The leading associative factor in men was obesity, whereas in women the independent associations were found with respect to pulse BP and HDL. In men with HDL levels below 0.95 mmol/l the effect of obesity was significantly higher in magnitude than the average effect in men. The association of pulse BP in women showed stepwise decrease in its magnitude as the age increased. The independent role of regular smoking was not so prominent and showed a limited significance only. Our main findings confirm some reproducible tendencies, demonstrated by the modern epidemiologic data, and evidence that in the employable population increased cIMT is prevalent only starting up with the sixth decade of life and the probability of its occurrence is mainly influenced by the major cardiovascular metabolic risk factors - obesity, HDL, as well as systolic and pulse BP.