Low socioeconomic status raises women’s metabolic syndrome risk

Low socioeconomic status raises women’s metabolic syndrome risk

By Eleanor McDermid
17 August 2007

Ann Epidemiol 2007; Advance online publication

MedWire News: Women with low socioeconomic status are at increased risk for the metabolic syndrome compared with their better-off peers, evidence from NHANES suggests.

“These findings provide physiologic mechanistic evidence for previously observed associations of income and education with risk for coronary heart disease,” the researchers write in the Annals of Epidemiology.

Eric Loucks (McGill University, Montreal, Canada) and colleagues studied data on 1407 women and 1527 men, aged 25 to 65 years, who participated in the 1999¬–2002 US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They defined wealth according to the poverty income ratio (PIR), with a PIR of less than 1 indicating income below the official poverty line for the USA.

Women aged 25–45 and 46–65 years with income below the poverty line were, respectively, 4.90- and 2.54-fold more likely to have the metabolic syndrome than their wealthier counterparts.

Women with fewer than 12 years of education were at increased risk for the metabolic syndrome compared with better-educated women, at odds ratios of 2.77 and 2.50 for women in the younger and older age groups, respectively.

But socioeconomic status did not influence men’s risk for having the metabolic syndrome.

The team says this may be explained by research showing that women with low socioeconomic status are more likely than men to be single parents, depressed, unemployed, and have income below the poverty threshold.

Socioeconomic status also did not influence metabolic syndrome risk in adolescents and people aged over 65 years, regardless of gender.

The findings support “the importance of targeting intervention and prevention efforts toward economically and socially disadvantaged populations, particularly women,” Loucks et al conclude.

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