SUSPECTED ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC CAUSES OF DIABETES MELLITUS AND ASSOCIATED OCULAR COMPLICATIONS IN THE SUMY REGION, UKRAINE, FOR THE PERIOD OF 2011-2016.

The aim of the study was to compare and research: the general prevalence of DM in the Sumy region compared with the prevalence of DM in the whole of Ukraine during the years 2011-2016; the prevalence of ocular complications of diabetes and their tendency to progress in Ukraine and Sumy region over this period; various demographical traits of the prevalence of ocular complications of diabetes and the dependence of prevalence of ocular complications of diabetes upon environmental causes and various socio-economic factors. We conducted a statistical analysis of data on diabetes and its complications in the whole of Ukraine and the Sumy region. The materials that were analyzed were collected over the last 6 years from the Department of Endocrine diseases of the Regional Hospital of Sumy. In addition materials were collected from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) presented by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (University of Washington, Seattle). In this work we have shown an increase of 17.5% in the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in the Sumy region during the period 2011 - 2016. During that period there was no significant change in the prevalence of DM in the whole of Ukraine. The prevalence of ocular complications of DM are approximately 22% of which 6% for DC and 16% for DR. The prevalence of ocular complications did not change over the years. We have shown that the increase of DM prevalence is in accordance with severe increase in environmental pollution. In addition we have shown that there is a process of the population moving from the villages to the towns - a process which invites negative change in life style leading to higher prevalence of DM. We plan in the future to look in detail into the question of ground water pollution and research whether the drinking water is polluted in a way that it may affect the increased prevalence of DM.