Secular trends of population-attributable fractions of obesity for hypertension among US population by sex and race/ethnicity: Analysis from NHANES 1999–2018

Highlights

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  The population-attributable fractions of hypertension attributed to obesity have increased steadily in US adults and boys aged 8–17.

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  The population-attributable fractions of hypertension due to general obesity and abdominal obesity were higher in women than in men.

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  Mexican Americans had a more rapid growth in population-attributable fractions of hypertension due to general obesity and abdominal obesity.

Abstract

Obesity is a major risk factor of hypertension, therefore quantifying the contribution of obesity to hypertension is necessary. The current study aimed to investigate the changes in population-attributable fractions (PAFs) of hypertension associated with general obesity and abdominal obesity over the recent 2 decades among the US population, as well as important sub-populations. This report was performed based on national-level cross-sectional data for 46,535 adults aged 18 years and older and 20,745 children aged 8–17 from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2018. The PAFs of hypertension due to general obesity and abdominal obesity were calculated by sex, race/ethnicity, and survey year. The linear regression analysis was used to evaluate the secular trends of PAFs over the years. The prevalence of general obesity and abdominal obesity presented significantly increasing trends during the past 2 decades in the US. The PAFs of hypertension due to general obesity increased steadily from 11.9 % to 15.1 % in women with a slope of 0.38 % (95 % CI: 0.31 – 0.45 %) and from 8.4 % to 13.4 % in men with a slope of 0.46 % (95 % CI: 0.36 – 0.56 %). Similar increasing trends were also observed for the PAFs due to abdominal obesity in both women and men. Additionally, there were significantly different trends of PAFs in various races/ethnicities. Over the past 2 decades, the contributions of obesity to hypertension were gradually rising among US population, which emphasizes the importance of controlling weight to further reduce the burden of hypertension.