RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIF. — Cardiovascular risk factors varied considerably by race and ethnicity in women with polycystic ovary syndrome in a large Kaiser Permanente study presented by Dr. Seth L. Feigenbaum, a reproductive endocrinologist in the San Francisco office of the Permanente Medical Group.
Dr. Feigenbaum and associates at the 3.3-million-member Kaiser Permanente Health Plan of Northern California compared 6,671 women ages 16–44 who were diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) with 26,662 age-matched women in terms of three cardiovascular risk factors: obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.
The sample represents 42% of insured individuals in northern California and is highly representative of the racial and ethnic diversity of the 14 counties of the San Francisco Bay vicinity, Dr. Feigenbaum said at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society.
Two-thirds of women with a diagnosis of PCOS were obese—having a body mass index of 30 kg/m
Compared with white women, black and Hispanic women with PCOS were significantly more likely, and Asian women were significantly less likely, to be obese.
Blacks were far more likely than Asians or Hispanics, and somewhat more likely than whites, to be hypertensive. Diabetes was most prevalent in Asians and Hispanics, followed by whites, then blacks.
In a multivariate regression analysis that adjusted for variables such as BMI, distinct racial/ethnic patterns emerged:
▸ Asians had a twofold increased risk of diabetes, compared with whites
▸ Blacks, by an odds ratio of 1.32, were considerably more likely than whites to have hypertension
▸ Hispanics had higher rates of diabetes, but lower rates of hypertension than whites, with odds ratios of 1.33 and 0.68, respectively.