Lipid profile variations and their relationship with malnutrition in seventh level students of the clinical laboratory career

Abstract

The lipid profile, such as cholesterol and triglycerides, contains a variety of biological molecules that play important roles in cell membranes, act as a source of energy and activate signals. The objective was to determine the relationship between lipid profile and different nutritional states. The main hypothesis was that malnutrition in students is associated with alterations in the lipid profile, with elevated levels of total cholesterol, high density lipoproteins, low density lipoproteins and triglycerides. The methodology implemented was an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional and prospective cohort study with a census sample of 58 students who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study and the anonymization of the data was performed with the SPSS version 27 program for better management of the results. The results showed that 29.3% had hypercholesterolemia, 44.8% of the population studied had low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, 8.6% had low-density lipoprotein hypercholesterolemia and finally 31.0% of the students had hypertriglyceridemia. Malnutrition due to excess weight, affected 48.3% of the sample studied. It was concluded that there is a significant correlation between malnutrition and lipid profile variations in students. This suggests the need to implement health promotion and cardiovascular disease prevention strategies in this student population.