Background: The professional diver’s activity implies body cardiovascular stress. Little data on cardiovascular
risk factors is available. Some studies report a high prevalence of tobacco consumption.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the cardiovascular risk factors of professional divers and
calculate the predicted 5-year risk and the predicted 10-year risk of an acute coronary event.
Materials and methods: In one medical centre, data on dives and cardiovascular risk factors
were analysed on Epidata® software, by Pearson c2 test or by Fisher’s exact test, by analysis of
variance test or by Kruskal-Wallis test, and by Spearman correlation coefficient. Cardiovascular
risk scores at 5 and 10 years were calculated using SCORE.
Results: A total 200 professional divers were included. Of these, 31% were smokers or had
stopped smoking for less than 3 years; 40% had an abnormal body mass index; 50% had raised
total cholesterol levels; 11% had an advanced age; 6.5% had high blood pressure; 81% had at
least one risk factor; 66% had an alterable risk factor; 25.5% had a 5-year risk greater than that
of the general population of the same age; 2.5% had a high cardiovascular risk at 10 years; and
34% were at intermediate risk.
Conclusions: The majority of divers had at least one cardiovascular risk factor. Cardiovascular
risk scores were lower than that of the general population. However, some of this population is at
high risk. One third of the divers had an intermediate risk, which should lead to the consideration
of conducting additional biological examinations to better assess their risk