Objective: To describe the prevalence of lipid abnormalities found in the Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey 2006 (ENSANut 2006).
Material and methods: Information was obtained from 4 040 subjects aged 20 to 69 years, studied after a 9- to 12-hour fast.
Results: Median lipid concentrations were: cholesterol 198.5 mg/dl, triglycerides 139.6 mg/dl, HDL-cholesterol 39.0 mg/dl, non-HDL-cholesterol 159.5 mg/dl and LDL-cholesterol 131.5 mg/dl. The most frequent abnormality was HDL-cholesterol below 40 mg/dl with a prevalence of 60.5% (95%CI 58.2-62.8%). Hypercholesterolemia (> 200 mg/dl) had a frequency of abnormality of 43.6% (95%CI 41.4-46.0%). Only 8.6% of the hypercholesterolemic subjects knew their diagnosis. Hypertriglyceridemia (>or= 150 mg/dl) was observed in 31.5% (IC 95% 29.3-33.9%) of the population.
Conclusions: The ENSANUT 2006 data confirm that the prevalence of hypoalphalipoproteinemia and other forms of dyslipidemia in Mexican adults is very high.