Diabetic control and serum lipids in diabetics attending a Pakistani hospital

ABSTRACT

Diabetes Mellitus is more prevalent in Asians as compared to White Caucasians. Hence, it has great importance as a public health problem. There is a paucity of data about the state of lipids in this disease, from Pakistan. We studied diabetic patients attending outpatients clinic and recorded their personal characteristics, details of their disease and measured their blood glucose, lipids and glycosylated haemoglobin. Design: Case series. Setting: Patients attending outpatients department of a teaching hospital. Subjects and Seventy consecutive diabetics attending the outpatients department were enrolled in the study. Their age, sex, disease duration, body mass index [BMI]; treatment history, occupation and social class were recorded. Fasting plasma sample was collected and glucose, cholesterol [total, HDL, LDL], triglycerides and glycosylated haemoglobin [HBA] estimated. Data was analysed using SPSS statistical package. Most of the patients were non-insulin dependent [N1DDM] diabetics 90%, sedentary workers [70%] and females [66%]. Mean duration of diabetes was 6.2 years [SD 5.2]. Plasma glucose [mean 201 mg/dl], HBA [mean 7.92], triglycerides [mean 215.9 mg/dl] and total cholesterol [mean 221.4 mg/dl] were recorded. About a quarter of cases had a BMI > 28 Kg/m2 and 15% had a BMI > 30 Kg/m2. HDL and LDL cholesterol mean values were 44.1 mg/dl and 134.2 mg/dl respectively. There was good correlation between HBA and fasting plasma glucose. However, the correlation between fasting plasma glucose and various lipid parameters was poor. Conclusions: Majority of diabetics attending hospital outpatients were suffering from NIDDM. A significant proportion of them were obese. As a group they exhibited poor diabetic control and had only modest elevation of plasma lipids. The correlation between fasting plasma glucose [and HBA] and lipid levels was poor. However, there is good correlation between fasting plasma glucose and glycosylated haemoglobinm, highlighting usefulness of the latter for monitoring