Epidemic Hypertension in Nigerian Workers

BACKGROUND:

This dynamic population provided a valuable opportunity to gain important information about the etiology of hypertension which would be much more difficult to gain from a United States Black population because higher weight and blood pressure are already entrenched and static in the United States population.

DESIGN NARRATIVE:

From 1991 to 1996, a cross-sectional study was conducted to test the hypothesis that differences in hypertension prevalence were primarily related to differences in SES. The higher prevalence of hypertension among the high SES Nigerian professionals was thought to be related to higher weight, caloric intake, Westernization of diet, alcohol intake, sodium intake, cardiovascular reactivity, and stress due to job, migration, and change in SES, and to reduced potassium intake and physical activity. Civil servants were systematically sampled from civil service employee lists. Data were collected on blood pressure; urinary sodium, potassium, and protein; diet; anthropometry; electrocardiogram; serum insulin; stress in the work environment, migration history, and cardiovascular reactivity.

In FY 1992, the Office of Research on Women's Health provided supplemental funds to enlarge the study and to perform gender analyses. The supplemental funds were used to determine whether fatty acid distributions, and their relationships to cardiovascular risk factors differed between Nigerian women and United States Black women; United States Black women and United States white women; and Nigerian women and Nigerian men. Forty men and forty women, ages 18 to 30, were chosen randomly from the Nigerian civil servant population. Subjects with hypertension, those using oral contraceptives, or any medication affecting the sympathetic nervous system, were excluded. The Nigerian subjects were compared with 40 Black and 40 white healthy female volunteers at the University of Pittsburgh.