Prevalence of Cardiovascular Risk Factors Among Professional Football Athletes in Sabah, Malaysia

Cardiovascular death is the leading cause of mortality worldwide including Malaysia. This is a pilot study to identify the prevalence of cardiovascular risk among professional footballers in Sabah, Malaysia as well as to differentiate the risk factors among adolescent and adult footballer group. Data was collected using the standard Pre-Participation Evaluation (PPE) registry including demographic data, medical history, family history, anthropometric data, vital signs, physical examination and blood sampling during pre-participation health screening for Sabah Football club in Sports Medicine Clinic, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, from 1^st December 2017 – 30^th January 2018. A total of 55 participants were involved in this cross-sectional study. Descriptive and association analysis was performed using SPSS V22. Obesity and dyslipidemia are the major CVD risks seen among Sabah footballer with 74% of the footballers having CV risk factors. Three out of four footballers were having at least one cardiovascular (CV) risk factor. Overweight showed the highest prevalence (n = 27; 47%), followed by high LDL cholesterol (n = 20; 36%), and smoking (n = 18; 30.9%). However, all athletes showed low Framingham scoring. There were significant differences in diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.017), BMI (p = 0.015), total cholesterol (p = 0.038) and LDL cholesterol (p = 0.034) between adolescent and adult athletes. The alarming rise of cardiovascular risk factors among football athletes in Sabah calls for primary and secondary prevention strategies to improve cardiovascular health in this population.