STUDY OF RELATIONSHIP OF HYPERLIPIDEMIA TO DIETARY HABITS

ABSTRACT Objective: To study the relationship of hyperlipidemia to dietary habits. Methodology: The study was conducted in General Medicine Department, PIMS, Islamabad from December 2023 to May 2024. Data was collected by interviewing patients. A questionnaire sheet was designed and informed consent was taken. The population groups were from Rawalpindi, Islamabad, surrounding peripheries and referred patients from nearby towns of North Punjab and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Total 450 individuals were registered and 150 meeting the inclusion criteria were finally selected. All the enrolled patients were having hyperlipidemia and controls with normal lipids profile. Data was analyzed using appropriate statistical software (SPSS 14). Results:  A strong relationship between intake of Lipid rich diet and hyperlipidemia was observed in our studied population. The average age of patients was 48.2 years and Male and female gender was equally balanced with almost 50% of the proportion each gender. The average BMI seen was 24.1 + 6.1. The total calorie intake of (>3000) seen was adapted by 39.3% study cases. The imbalanced lipid profile in terms of low HDL (4%), high LDL (32%), high cholesterol (42.7%), high triglycerides (57.3%) showed a very poor health status of the study population. The prevalence of hyperlipidemia was found to be 26.0% of included patients and almost 70.0% of these cases were due to increase in calorie intake (>3000).  Conclusion: The prevalence of hyperlipidemia was observed to be quite high (26.0%) in this study and hyperlipidemia was founded to be strongly associated with increased caloric intake.