Abstract

BACKGROUND
Diabetes has recently become a major public health problem due to the socioeconomic changes in Korea. Epidemiological data for diabetes are needed to establish disease control and health improvement programs in the community. Considering the tendency for larger concentrations of the population in the urban areas of Korea, epidemiological studies in these areas are essential. This this was performed to determine the epidemiologic characteristics, prevalence, and incidence of diabetes in Korean urban communities. METHODS: The target cohort of this study was randomly selected from 20,222 residents living in the Mokdong apartment areas one, two, five and six, Yangcheon-Gu, Seoul. Of the 20,222 residents, 1,011 were residents, of which 766 (male 264, female 502) subjects participated and 372 subjects without diabetes at baseline examination followed up for 2 years. At the baseline and follow-up examination, all subjects underwent a 75g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and anthropometric measurements (height, weight, waist to hip ratio, pulse rate, blood pressure, and subcutaneous skin fold thickness) were performed. RESULTS: There was an 8.5% prevalence of diabetes and 7.8% with impaired glucose regulation (IGR), including impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and impaired fasting glucose (IFG). The age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes IGR were 8.4% and 7.1%, respectively. The prevalence of diabetes or IGR increased with increasing age. The prevalence of diabetes was associated with aging, family history of diabetes, and high levels of waist to hip ratio. The age-adjusted annual incidence rate of diabetes for subjects over 40 years of age at the baseline was 1.3%. The risk factors for the development of incident diabetes, from a multiple logistic regression analysis, were the waist to hip ratio and the 2-hour postload serum glucose concentrations. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of diabetes in the Mokdong apartment area was slightly higher than in Yonchon, Jungup, or Beijing. The annual incidence of diabetes was lower than that found in the studies in Yonchon or in Pima Indian, but higher than those of Caucasians or American Hispanics.

• Keywords: Diabetes;Prevalence;Incidence;