ArticleBMC medicine2020
A comparison of the associations between adiposity and lipids in Malawi and the United Kingdom.
Article in BMC medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring the Impact of Urinary Metal Exposure on Blood Lipid Profiles in Chinese Adults: Mediating Roles of Health-Related Indicators.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2025Article
- Obesity phenotypes and dyslipidemia in adults from four African countries: An H3Africa AWI-Gen study.PloS one · 2025Article
- Interaction between antiretroviral therapy regimens and body mass index on triglyceride levels in people living with HIV: a cross-sectional and longitudinal study.Lipids in health and disease · 2024Article
- Lipid metabolism, BMI and the risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in the general population: evidence from a mediation analysis.Journal of translational medicine · 2023Article
- High Urban-Rural Inequities of Abdominal Obesity in Malawi: Insights from the 2009 and 2017 Malawi Noncommunicable Disease Risk Factors Surveys.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Then and Now: Investigating Anthropometrics and Child Mortality among Females in Malawi.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- A community based cross sectional study on the prevalence of dyslipidemias and 10 years cardiovascular risk scores in adults in Asmara, Eritrea.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Modeling and Analysis of the Relationship between Aerobic Exercise and Obesity Reduction in Adolescents.Journal of healthcare engineering · 2022Article
- Associations of body shapes with insulin resistance and cardiometabolic risk in middle-aged and elderly Chinese.Nutrition & metabolism · 2021Article
- Associations between low HDL, sex and cardiovascular risk markers are substantially different in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK: analysis of four population studies.BMJ global health · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe prevalence of excess adiposity, as measured by elevated body mass index (BMI) and waist-hip ratio (WHR), is increasing in sub-Saharan African (SSA) populations. This could add a considerable burden of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases for which these populations are currently ill-prepared. Evidence from white, European origin populations shows that higher adiposity leads to an adverse lipid profile; whether these associations are similar in all SSA populations requires further exploration. This study compared the association of BMI and WHR with lipid profile in urban Malawi with a contemporary cohort with contrasting socioeconomic, demographic, and ethnic characteristics in the United Kingdom (UK).
methodsWe used data from 1248 adolescents (mean 18.7 years) and 2277 Malawian adults (mean 49.8 years), all urban-dwelling, and from 3201 adolescents (mean 17.8 years) and 6323 adults (mean 49.7 years) resident in the UK. Adiposity measures and fasting lipids were assessed in both settings, and the associations of BMI and WHR with total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and triglycerides (TG) were assessed by sex and age groups in both studies.
resultsMalawian female adults were more adipose and had more adverse lipid profiles than their UK counterparts. In contrast, Malawian adolescent and adult males were leaner and had more favourable lipid profiles than in the UK. Higher BMI and WHR were associated with increased TC, LDL-C and TG and reduced HDL-C in both settings. The magnitude of the associations of BMI and WHR with lipids was mostly similar or slightly weaker in the Malawian compared with the UK cohort in both adolescents and adults. One exception was the stronger association between increasing adiposity and elevated TC and LDL-C in Malawian compared to UK men.
conclusionsMalawian adult women have greater adiposity and more adverse lipid profiles compared with their UK counterparts. Similar associations of adiposity with adverse lipid profiles were observed for Malawian and UK adults in most age and sex groups studied. Sustained efforts are urgently needed to address the excess adiposity and adverse lipid profiles in Malawi to mitigate a future epidemic of cardio-metabolic disease among the poorest populations.
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