Discrimination may increase metabolic syndrome severity
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Discrimination is a significant psychosocial risk factor for metabolic syndrome severity in Black adults, researchers found.
“Our findings suggest that discrimination may be an important risk factor for heart disease and diabetes among African Americans,” Michelle I. Cardel, PhD, MS, RD, assistant professor and registered dietician in the department of health outcomes and biomedical informatics at University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, told Healio. “The health of patients goes far beyond biological factors. Income, stress, discrimination and other psychosocial factors are playing a significant role in the development of disease. Health care providers and trainees must receive additional education on social determinants of health.”
In the study published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine, researchers analyzed data from 3,870 participants (mean age, 54 years; 63% women) without diabetes from the Jackson Heart Study. A questionnaire was completed to collect information on everyday and lifetime discrimination. Discrimination scores were calculated using difference scales. Traditional metabolic syndrome was defined using Adult ATP-III criteria. Researchers also calculated the severity of metabolic syndrome.
Compared with women, men reported more discrimination, particularly everyday (2.17 vs. 2.04; P = .0003), lifetime (3.24 vs. 2.86; P < .0001) and burden of lifetime discrimination (2.36 vs. 2.31; P = .0488).
Everyday discrimination decreased as participants aged, as reflected in participants aged 21 to 44 years (2.33), those aged 45 to 64 years (2.12) and in participants aged 65 years and older (1.7). Lifetime discrimination scores were 3.16 in participants aged 21 to 44 years, 3.2 in those aged 45 to 64 years and 2.33 in participants aged 65 years and older.
Everyday and lifetime discrimination were significantly linked with severity of metabolic syndrome independent of lifestyle and demographic factors (P = .003 and P = .017, respectively). This association was constant over an 8-year period.
“Discrimination results in profound social, economic and health ramifications,” Cardel said in an interview. “Right now, the Black community faces an interesting crisis of racism and COVID-19. This paper adds to the compelling body of evidence suggesting that discrimination is associated with significantly worse cardiometabolic health.”
For more information:
Michelle I. Cardel, PhD, MS, RD, can be reached at mcardel@ufl.edu; Twitter: @michellecardel.
Collapse
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts