title: The prevalence of diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance among Hong Kong Chinese adults of working age.
abstract: We studied 1513 employees (910 men and 603 women) from a public utility company and a regional hospital to document the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) in the Chinese working population of Hong Kong using a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test and World Health Organisation (1985) criteria. The overall prevalence 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 30-64 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% gave a family history affecting at least one first degree relative. Using polychotomous logistic regression analysis, the independent predictive 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 confirm that Hong Kong Chinese have a moderate to high susceptibility to non-insulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM) when exposed to sufficient environmental and lifestyle factors. The high prevalence of IGT indicates a potential for the prevalence of DM to continue to rise unless effective preventive measures are implemented.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin.
authors.forename: C S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Cockram
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lau
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: A Y
authors.initials: AY
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lau
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Swaminathan
authors.forename: S P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Donnan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002681:China / Q000208:ethnology; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D018149:Glucose Intolerance / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005951:Glucose Tolerance Test; D006723:Hong Kong / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D014944:World Health Organization