Associations between risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and frailty among community-dwelling older adults in Lanzhou, China

OBJECTIVES: To examine the relationship between cardiovascular disease risk factors and frailty in a sample of older Chinese adults. METHODS: A total of 458 community-dwelling older adults (≥65 years) in Lanzhou, Gansu Province of China participated in a cross-sectional survey. Their status was evaluated in terms of frailty phenotype (unintentional weight loss, exhaustion, low activity levels, slowness and weakness). Participants were categorized as not frail, prefrail or frail. Cardiovascular disease risk factors that were assessed included: blood pressure, body mass index, waist circumference, blood glucose, total cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoproteins and high-density lipoproteins. RESULTS: Individuals with obesity had an increased risk of prefrailty (OR: 2.26; 95% CI: 1.05, 4.84). Hypertension was inversely associated with frailty among the participants (OR: 0.31; 95% CI: 0.11, 0.87) after adjusting for covariates. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that much more attention should be paid to weight control of the elderly in the community for preventing them from transition to prefrailty or frailty. Active prevention and control of cardiovascular diseases among the community-dwelling elder are still of great importance.