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Lifestyle behaviour and prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors - a pilot study comparing Kiribati and European seafarers

BACKGROUND: According to internal observations within a German shipping company, obvious risk-behaviour persists among the crew members coming from the Pacific Island State of Kiribati and representing a large part of the crew aboard merchant vessels of this company. These observations were related...

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Autores principales: von Katzler, R., Zyriax, B. C., Jagemann, B., Westenhoefer, J., Jensen, H. J., Harth, V., Oldenburg, M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6604182/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31262273
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7186-2
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author von Katzler, R.
Zyriax, B. C.
Jagemann, B.
Westenhoefer, J.
Jensen, H. J.
Harth, V.
Oldenburg, M.
author_facet von Katzler, R.
Zyriax, B. C.
Jagemann, B.
Westenhoefer, J.
Jensen, H. J.
Harth, V.
Oldenburg, M.
author_sort von Katzler, R.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: According to internal observations within a German shipping company, obvious risk-behaviour persists among the crew members coming from the Pacific Island State of Kiribati and representing a large part of the crew aboard merchant vessels of this company. These observations were related to excessive eating habits. This study aims to assess the cardiovascular risk among seafarers and to compare lifestyle factors between Kiribati and European crew members. METHODS: In the present maritime field study 81 sailors (48 Kiribati, 33 European, average age at 38.9 and 36.8 years respectively) were examined from April until August 2014 aboard four container ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean (participation rate of 90.9%). RESULTS: Based on the number of established risk factors, 35.4% of the Kiribati and 16.7% of the European crew members were regarded as a high risk group for cardiovascular diseases. The HDL-values of Kiribati were found to be considerably lower (34.9 mg/dl) than the references values given by the WHO and in comparison to the European crew members (44.8 mg/dl) (p = 0.002). 91.7% of Kiribati and 51.5% of European participants were found to be overweight according to WHO-criteria - with a mean Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30.3 kg/m(2) and 25.6 kg/m(2) (p <  0.001). Regarding lifestyle factors Kiribati often claimed to eat significantly larger amounts of food aboard while most European sailors stated to eat less or about the same during their shipboard stay (p = 0.017). Daily sleeping hours were slight on both sides; however with a mean of 5.2 h a day Kiribati crew members had significant fewer sleep (p = 0.038). The examined Kiribati sailors had a mean increase in weight of 6 kg over a 12 months period of observation. CONCLUSIONS: In total the compiled data points towards a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases particularly due to alimentary habits within the Kiribati crew members. The distinct weight-gain measured among the Kiribati in spite of higher energy consumption levels at sea is alarming. Thus, the results of this study confirm the necessity of health-improving interventions aboard cargo vessels.
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spelling pubmed-66041822019-07-12 Lifestyle behaviour and prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors - a pilot study comparing Kiribati and European seafarers von Katzler, R. Zyriax, B. C. Jagemann, B. Westenhoefer, J. Jensen, H. J. Harth, V. Oldenburg, M. BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: According to internal observations within a German shipping company, obvious risk-behaviour persists among the crew members coming from the Pacific Island State of Kiribati and representing a large part of the crew aboard merchant vessels of this company. These observations were related to excessive eating habits. This study aims to assess the cardiovascular risk among seafarers and to compare lifestyle factors between Kiribati and European crew members. METHODS: In the present maritime field study 81 sailors (48 Kiribati, 33 European, average age at 38.9 and 36.8 years respectively) were examined from April until August 2014 aboard four container ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean (participation rate of 90.9%). RESULTS: Based on the number of established risk factors, 35.4% of the Kiribati and 16.7% of the European crew members were regarded as a high risk group for cardiovascular diseases. The HDL-values of Kiribati were found to be considerably lower (34.9 mg/dl) than the references values given by the WHO and in comparison to the European crew members (44.8 mg/dl) (p = 0.002). 91.7% of Kiribati and 51.5% of European participants were found to be overweight according to WHO-criteria - with a mean Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30.3 kg/m(2) and 25.6 kg/m(2) (p <  0.001). Regarding lifestyle factors Kiribati often claimed to eat significantly larger amounts of food aboard while most European sailors stated to eat less or about the same during their shipboard stay (p = 0.017). Daily sleeping hours were slight on both sides; however with a mean of 5.2 h a day Kiribati crew members had significant fewer sleep (p = 0.038). The examined Kiribati sailors had a mean increase in weight of 6 kg over a 12 months period of observation. CONCLUSIONS: In total the compiled data points towards a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases particularly due to alimentary habits within the Kiribati crew members. The distinct weight-gain measured among the Kiribati in spite of higher energy consumption levels at sea is alarming. Thus, the results of this study confirm the necessity of health-improving interventions aboard cargo vessels. BioMed Central 2019-07-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6604182/ /pubmed/31262273 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7186-2 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
von Katzler, R.
Zyriax, B. C.
Jagemann, B.
Westenhoefer, J.
Jensen, H. J.
Harth, V.
Oldenburg, M.
Lifestyle behaviour and prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors - a pilot study comparing Kiribati and European seafarers
title Lifestyle behaviour and prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors - a pilot study comparing Kiribati and European seafarers
title_full Lifestyle behaviour and prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors - a pilot study comparing Kiribati and European seafarers
title_fullStr Lifestyle behaviour and prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors - a pilot study comparing Kiribati and European seafarers
title_full_unstemmed Lifestyle behaviour and prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors - a pilot study comparing Kiribati and European seafarers
title_short Lifestyle behaviour and prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors - a pilot study comparing Kiribati and European seafarers
title_sort lifestyle behaviour and prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors - a pilot study comparing kiribati and european seafarers
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6604182/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31262273
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7186-2
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