Cs. Cockram et al., THE PREVALENCE OF DIABETES-MELLITUS AND IMPAIRED GLUCOSE-TOLERANCE AMONG HONG-KONG CHINESE ADULTS OF WORKING AGE, Diabetes research and clinical practice, 21(1), 1993, pp. 67-73
We studied 1513 employees (910 men and 603 women) from a public utilit
y company and a regional hospital to document the prevalence of diabet
es mellitus (DM) and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) in the Chinese w
orking population of Hong Kong using a 75-g oral glucose tolerance tes
t and World Health Organisation (1985) criteria. The overall prevalenc
e of DM was 4.5 (95% confidence interval: 3.5-5.7)% and that of IGT 7.
3 (6.0-8.6)%. The prevalence of DM was 5.1 (3.7-6.5)% in men and 3.6 (
2.1-5.1)% in women, while that of IGT was 7.4 (5.7-6.5)% in men and 7.
1 (5.1-9.1)% in women. The truncated age-adjusted rate of DM for age 3
0-64 is 7.7% which is comparable to the age-adjusted prevalence rates
among Chinese living in Singapore and Mauritius but in marked contrast
to the low prevalence rate in Chinese living in Mainland China. Among
the diabetic subjects, 38.2% had been previously diagnosed and 32% ga
ve a family history affecting at least one first degree relative. Usin
g polychotomous logistic regression analysis, the independent predicti
ve factors for the development of DM include age (t = 7.31, P < 0.001)
, family history (t = 5.1, P < 0.001), waist hip ratio (t = 4.05, P <
0.001) and body mass index (t = 4.62, P < 0.001). Our data further con
firm that Hong Kong Chinese have a moderate to high susceptibility to
non-insulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM) when exposed to sufficient envi
ronmental and lifestyle factors. The high prevalence of IGT indicates
a potential for the prevalence of DM to continue to rise unless effect
ive preventive measures are implemented.