The Prevalence of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors, and Metabolic Syndrome among Iranian Military Parachutists

Background: The incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is rapidly increasing worldwide. Occupation-related stress such as military parachuting has been considered to be a potentially important cardiovascular risk factor. The present study was performed to determine the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and metabolic syndrome among military parachutists which provides a guideline to prevent catastrophic cardiovascular events.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study among 96 military parachutists in southern IR Iran; who were evaluated in the military clinic in Shiraz, Southern IR Iran. Information regarding demographic and life style were obtained from each subject. Arterial blood pressure, weight, height, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and hip circumference (HC), fasting blood glucose, lipid profile consisting of total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglyceride were measured by standard methods.

Results: The mean age of participants was 37.4±6.4 years. There were 5 (5.2%) cases under treatment for cardiovascular diseases, 4 (4.2%) participants were pre-diabetics and 5 (5.2%) suffered from diabetes mellitus. Hypertriglyceridemia and hypercholesterolemia were seen in 23 (24%) and 46 (47%) military parachutists respectively.

Conclusions: Although war-related stressors and high intensity physical activities are associated with both acute cardiac events and cardiac risk factors, our data is in favor of lower frequency of cardiovascular risk factors among military parachutists. However, routine monitoring of military parachutists is necessary to find the cardiovascular risk factors.