R.R.G. Pérez’s scientific contributions

Introduction: children and adolescents adopt lifestyles that may lead to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases when they become adults and other potentially harmful factors have also been added. Objective: to determine the presence of risk factors for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases in adolescent students. Methods: observational, analytical and cross-sectional study of 259 adolescents from an urban junior high school located in Mayabeque province, which was conducted in the period of 2011 and 2012. The participants met the inclusion criteria. The study variables were sex, age, nutritional assessment, blood pressure, dietary habits, sedentary lifestyle, smoking and also cholesterol and triglyceride levels that were only measured in those overweighed, obese, hypertensive or having a family history of hyperlipidemia. Results: the most significant family pathological history was smoking found in 43.8 % of students. In the study group, 2.7 % showed high blood pressure, 6.9% had been low birthweight babies and 13.1 % rated as overweighed or obese, with significant association between overweigh and blood hypertension. The dietary habits were found inadequate in 94.5 % of them and they were also related to overweigh and obesity. The triglyceride test of 13 % of the studied adolescents showed high figures. Conclusions: the identified risk factors for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases in adolescent teenagers were family history of smoking, blood hypertension and obesity, risky dietary habits, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, overweigh and obesity.

Introduction: smoking is a universally extended drug addiction. The onset is earlier in adolescence. Objective: to evaluate the characteristics of smoking in a group of school adolescents. Methods: a cross-sectional and descriptive research study was carried out in a group of school teenagers aged 13 to 15 years. Each 8th and 9th grader from "William Soler Ledea" junior high school in Centro Habana municipality, Havana province, was inquired from September 1st, 2011 to February 1st, 2012. The evaluated variables were age, sex, schooling, smoking habit, length of time of smoking, number of smoked cigarettes and living with smokers as influence or motivation for smoking. The relative risk or the incidence ratio was estimated whereas chi square test for comparison of three aspects was used, with 5 % level of significance (p< 0.05). Results: out of the participants, 16.8 % smoked. The 14-15 y age group, 9th graders and males significantly prevailed. Most of them did not smoke daily or for more than one month. The relative risk of smoking was high when the professor, the friends, the boyfriend or the girlfriend smoked too. The family was a very negative example of smoking in the vast majority of cases. Conclusions: high incidence of smoking was found in the adolescents participating in the study and the influence of smokers over their social and family environment was significant.