Prevalence of plasma lipid abnormalities and its association with glucose metabolism in Spain: the di@bet.es study.

INTRODUCTION

Dyslipidemia is a significant contributor to the elevated CVD risk observed in type 2 diabetes mellitus. We assessed the prevalence of dyslipidemia and its association with glucose metabolism status in a representative sample of the adult population in Spain and the percentage of subjects at guideline-recommended LDL-C goals.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The di@bet.es study is a national, cross-sectional population-based survey of 5728 adults.

RESULTS

A total of 4776 subjects were studied. Dyslipidemia was diagnosed in 56.8% of subjects; only 13.2% of subjects were treated with lipid lowering drugs. Lipid abnormalities were found in 56.8% of Spanish adults: 23.3% with high LDL-C, 21.5% high TG, 35.8% high non-HDL-C, and 17.2% low HDL-C. Most normal subjects showed an LDL-C ≤ 3.36 mmol/l. Pre-diabetics presented similar proportion when considering a goal of 3.36 mmol/l, but only 35% of them reached an LDL-C goal ≤ 2.6 mmol/l. Finally, 45.3% of diabetics had an LDL-C ≤ 2.6 mmol/l, and only 11.3% achieved an LDL-C ≤ 1.8 mmol/l.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study demonstrates a high prevalence of dyslipidemia in the adult Spanish population, and a low use of lipid-lowering drugs. Moreover, the number of subjects achieving their corresponding LDL-C goal is small, particularly in subjects at high cardiovascular risk, such as diabetics.