[Type II diabetes mellitus and selected metabolic disorders in urban population aged over 35 years].

Recent epidemiologic studies show increasing "epidemic" of diabetes mellitus throughout the world. Reliable data on diabetes prevalence in Poland are scarce. Therefore Polish Ministry of Health initiated a programme aiming at gathering substantial amount of epidemiologic data on the prevalence of diabetes and other metabolic disorders. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence of diabetes, obesity and lipid disorders in a well-defined urban population aged 35 and over. The study subjects were 6000 randomly chosen inhabitants of the Central District of Lodz. All were invitated to participate in the study by mail. Every participant underwent full medical examination, with body mass index (BMI) calculation, and blood pressure as well as waist-to-hip ratio measurements. Serum total, LDL and HDL cholesterol and triglycerides were assessed. In non-diabetes subjects oral glucose tolerance test (75 g) (OGTT) according to WHO protocol was performed unless their fasting capillary blood glucose exceeded 8 mmol/l. In selected subjects serum samples were stored for future insulin and C-peptide assays. 2018 persons took part in the study (response rate 33.6%), including 1217 (60.3%) women and 801 men (39.7%), mean age 58.2 years. 179 (8.9%) persons claimed to have been diagnosed with diabetes previously (8.9%). OGTT was performed in 1574 subjects. Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) was found in 342 (17.0%), and diabetes in 138 (6.8%) subjects. Total diabetes prevalence reached therefore 15.7%. Excessive body weight (BMI > or = 25 kg/m2) was noted in 806 (39.9%), and obesity (BMI > or = 30 kg/m2) in 626 (31.0%) persons. Total cholesterol > 5.2 mmol/l was observed in 1170 (58.0%), LDL-cholesterol > 3.5 mmol/l in 734 (36.4%), cholesterol HDL < 0.9 mmol/l in 953 (47.2%), and triglycerides > 1.7 mmol/l in 1392 osób (69.0%) subjects. In conclusion, high prevalence of known and unknown diabetes together with other metabolic disorders is strikingly high in adult urban population, which in all may require effective implementation of specific nationwide prevention programmes.