Age- and sex-specific prevalence of diabetes and impaired glucose regulation in 11 Asian cohorts.
OBJECTIVE
To report the age- and sex-specific prevalence of diabetes and impaired glucose regulation (IGR) according to revised World Health Organization criteria for diabetes in Asian populations.


METHODS
We performed 11 studies of 4 countries, comprising 24,335 subjects (10,851 men and 13,484 women) aged 30-89 years who attended the 2-h oral glucose tolerance test and met the inclusion criteria for data analysis.


RESULTS
The prevalence of diabetes increased with age and reached the peak at 70-89 years of age in Chinese and Japanese subjects but peaked at 60-69 years of age followed by a decline at the 70 years of age in Indian subjects. At 30-79 years of age, the 10-year age-specific prevalence of diabetes was higher in Indian than in Chinese and Japanese subjects. Indian subjects also had a higher prevalence of IGR in the younger age-groups (30-49 years) compared with that for Chinese and Japanese subjects. Impaired glucose tolerance was more prevalent than impaired fasting glycemia in all Asian populations studied for all age-groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Indians had the highest prevalence of diabetes among Asian countries. The age at which the peak prevalence of diabetes was reached was approximately 10 years younger in Indian compared with Chinese and Japanese subjects. Diabetes and IGR will be underestimated in Asians based on the fasting glucose testing alone.
Qiao
Qing
Q
Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion, National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland. qing.qiao@ktl.fi
Hu
Gang
G
Tuomilehto
Jaako
J
Nakagami
Tomoko
T
Balkau
Beverley
B
Borch-Johnsen
Knut
K
Ramachandran
A
A
Mohan
V
V
Iyer
S Ramnathan
SR
Tominaga
Makoto
M
Kiyohara
Yutaka
Y
Kato
Isao
I
Okubo
Ken
K
Nagai
Masaki
M
Shibazaki
Satomi
S
Yang
Ze
Z
Tong
Zhifu
Z
Fan
Qinying
Q
Wang
Binzhi
B
Chew
Suok Kai
SK
Tan
Bee Yian
BY
Heng
Derrick
D
Emmanuel
Shanta
S
Tajima
Naoko
N
Iwamoto
Yasuhiko
Y
Snehalatha
C
C
Vijay
V
V
Kapur
A
A
Dong
Yanhu
Y
Nan
Hairong
H
Gao
Weiguo
W
Shi
Haiyan
H
Fu
Fangming
F
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D044466:Asian People; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D018149:Glucose Intolerance / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012727:Sex Characteristics
D001786:Blood Glucose