Prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control of dyslipidemia in Chinese adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Researchers have conducted a considerable number of epidemiological studies on dyslipidemia in China over recent years. Nevertheless, a representative study to comprehensively appraise for the epidemiological status of dyslipidemia is still lacked. This meta-analysis is intended to explore the pooled prevalence, rates of awareness, treatment, and control of dyslipidemia among adults in Chinese Mainland. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A systematic review was performed on relevant cross-sectional studies published since January 2012 by searching six authoritative literature databases. Meta-analyses were conducted in included studies based on a random-effect model to summarize the epidemiological status of dyslipidemia in China. A potential source of heterogeneity was detected by subgroup analysis and meta-regression. Publication bias was assessed by Egger's test and funnel plots. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the study quality's influence on the pooled estimate of prevalence and rates of awareness, treatment, and control. RESULTS: Forty-one original researches with a total of 1,310,402 Chinese participants were finally included in the meta-analysis. The prevalence, rates of awareness, treatment, and control of dyslipidemia were 42.1%, 18.2%, 11.6%, and 5.4%, respectively. With a pooled prevalence estimate at 24.5%, low HDL-C was the most prevalent among various dyslipidemia types, followed by hypertriglyceridemia (TG) (15.4%), hypercholesterolemia (TC) (8.3%), and high LDL-C (7.1%). The pooled prevalence of elevated serum lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] was 19.4%. By gender, the prevalence of dyslipidemia was 47.3% in males and 38.8% in females. Subgroup analyses revealed that the prevalence in southern and urban areas were higher than their counterparts. Females and population in urban areas tended to possess higher rates of awareness, treatment, and control. Meta-regression analyses suggested that the year of screening influenced prevalence estimates for dyslipidemia. The impact of the study's quality on the pooled estimates is insignificant. CONCLUSION: Our study suggested a severe epidemic situation of dyslipidemia among adults in Chinese Mainland. More importantly, the awareness, treatment, and control rates were extremely low, revealing that dyslipidemia is a grave health issue. Consequently, we should attach more importance to the management of dyslipidemia, especially in economically underdeveloped areas. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO [CRD42022366456].