BackgroundMore than 80% of premature deaths due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) occur in low-and middle-income countries. However, access to, and affordability of medications remain a challenge in these countries.

Introduction Several anthropometric measurements are variably recommended to assess adiposity in routine practice, with less agreement on their comparative performance. We assessed and compared the relationship of seven anthropometric measures of adiposity—waist circumference (WC), waist‐to‐height ratio (WHtR), Body Mass Index (BMI), Ponderal Index (PI), Conicity Index (C index), A Body Shape Index (ABSI), and Body Roundness Index (BRI)—with blood pressure (BP) levels and prevalent hypertension in adult Cameroonians. Methods Data were collected as Cameroon's contribution to the global May Measurement Month 2017(MMM17) survey. Participants were nonpregnant adults, who had no BP measurement in the past year and with no prior hypertension diagnosis. Hypertension was defined as systolic BP ≥140 mm Hg and/or diastolic ≥90 mm Hg. Odds ratios (ORs) for the presence of hypertension per 1 SD increase in each adiposity metrics were estimated in separate logistic regression models. Assessment and comparison of discrimination used the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) and nonparametric methods. Results We included 14 424 participants (8210 [58.25%] female; 39.84 ± 14.33 years). There was a graded association between measures of adiposity and prevalent screen‐detected (newly diagnosed) hypertension, with effect sizes being mostly within the same range across measures of adiposity. AUC for hypertension prediction ranged from 0.709 with PI to 0.721 with BRI for single measures, and from 0.736 to 0.739 with combinations of measures of adiposity. Conclusion WC, WHtR, and BRI were strongly associated with BP and better predicted prevalent hypertension, with effects enhanced with the inclusion of BMI.

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The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that the maximal instantaneous muscular power of humans ( _ w p ) is affected by the negative work performed immediately before the jump (w n ), possibly due to the recoil of elastic strain energy stored in previously stretched series-elastic elements of the muscle-tendon complex. Twenty-seven Bantu subjects (age 25.1 ± 4.3 years, body mass 67.5 ± 7.8 kg) were investigated. The _ w p , the average power ( _ w a ) and w n were determined during maximal vertical jumps off both feet on a force platform. Three jumping conditions were studied: squat jumps (SQ), countermovement jumps (CM), and jumps preceded by a free fall (FF) from a height of 0.3 m above the platform surface. The w n was higher in CM than in SQ and in FF than in CM and SQ. The _ w p was 3.51 ± 0.54 kW in SQ and did not vary in CM and FF. The _ w a increased with increasing w n (1.70 ± 0.30; 1.85 ± 0.34; 1.99 ± 0.31 kW in SQ, CM and FF, respectively, p \ 0.05). The greater was the w n , the higher was the force at the start of the positive push phase, and thus the maximal force attained during the push phase. In conclusion, _ w p was independent of w n , whereas _ w a was affected, because a greater force was developed over a shorter time during the push. The independence of _ w p of w n leads to refutation of the tested hypothesis.

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