High blood pressure levels and cardiovascular risk among Munduruku indigenous people(*)

OBJECTIVE: to identify the risk factors associated with prehypertension and arterial hypertension among Munduruku indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon. METHOD: a cross-sectional study carried out with 459 Munduruku indigenous people selected by means of stratified random sampling. Sociodemographic variables, habits and lifestyles, anthropometric data, fasting glucose and lipid profiles were evaluated. An automatic device calibrated and validated to measure blood pressure was used. The analyses of the data collected were carried out in the R software, version 3.5.1. For continuous variables, the Kruskall-Wallis test was used; for the categorical ones, Fischer’s Exact. The significance level was set at 5% and p-value≤0.05. RESULTS: the prevalence of altered blood pressure levels was 10.2% for values suggestive of hypertension and 4.1% for pre-hypertension. The risk of prehypertension among indigenous people was associated with being male (OR=1.65; 95% CI=0.65-4.21) and having a substantially increased waist circumference (OR=7.82; 95% CI=1.80-34.04). Regarding the risk for arterial hypertension, it was associated with age (OR=1.09; 95% CI=1.06-1.12), with increased waist circumference (OR=3.89; 95% CI=1.43-10, 54) and with substantially increased waist circumference (OR=5.46; 95% CI=1.78-16.75). CONCLUSION: among Munduruku indigenous people, men were more vulnerable to developing hypertension; age and increased waist circumference proved to be strong cardiovascular risk factors.