Background: Reports about medical consequences from sedentary work are contradictory. It might be associated with the metabolic syndrome (MS), a collection of cardiovascular risk factors including hypertension, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance and central obesity. No data are currently available on workers using visual display units (VDIU), a potential high risk group, given the sedentariness inherent in this work.
Patients and methods: We evaluated MS prevalence in 1547 VDU users with a mean age of 29.7 years and in a control group of 892 individuals with a mean age of 30.2 years who performed non-sedentary work, selected on the basis of similar demographic data. Physical examination and laboratory tests useful for MS diagnosis were performed.
Results: MS prevalence was 3.10% in VDU users vs 2.01% in controls (OR 2.048, 95% CI 1.169 to 3.587, p = 0.012). Significance persisted after controlling for confounding factors (e.g, smoking and leisure activity) in a multivariate analysis (OR 1.555, 95% CI 1.03 to 2.690, p < 0.05).
Conclusions: MS should carefully considered when performing health surveillance programmes in VDU users.