Risco de Síndrome Metabólica em trabalhadores de indústrias de transformação vinculadas e não vinculadas ao Programa de Alimentação do Trabalhador

Abstract

Studies have reported an increase in cardiometabolic risk among workers due to a higher frequency of overweight and greater waist circumference (WC) in those assisted by the Worker’s Food Program (WFP), the only Public Food and Nutrition Security Policy aimed at this public in Brazil. Thus, the aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) and its individual components among manufacturing workers and their relationship to the WFP. To this end, a prospective cross-sectional two-stage survey comparative of manufacturing workers from companies adherent and non-adherent to the WFP stratified by sector of activity and company size. After signing the consent, socioeconomic, bio-demographic, anthropometric data, health information and blood pressure check of the workers were collected. Blood samples were also collected (12h fasting) to determine blood glucose, triglycerides and HDL-cholesterol. Multilevel mixed effects logistic regression was used to compare the WFP and non-WFP groups separately for each sex. The survey included a total of 930 workers and 33 industries. The general prevalence of MetS was high, but without statistical differences between the sexes (39.8% in females versus 28.5% in males, p = 0.16). When comparing groups, men in the WFP group had a significantly higher prevalence of MetS (33.0% versus 23.9% non-WFP, p = 0.008) and for the individual components, a higher prevalence of increased WC (47,0% versus 29.4% non-WFP, p <0.001) and high fasting blood glucose (8.9% versus 6.3% nonWFP, p <0.001) was also observed. For women, no statistically significant results were observed in the prevalence of MetS and its individual components between groups. Thus, it is concluded that food assistance programs are associated with an increase in the prevalence of MetS in men, but not in women, suggesting that there is a difference in the effects of food assistance programs on the health status of low-income individuals, which may have an influence on sex and food insecurity.