Epidemiologic Study on Diabetes Mellitus in Primary School Children

ABSTRACT

An epidemiologic study on diabetes mellius in 13,152 primary school children(6,378 boys 6,765 girls, 9,302 Kwanju-city pupils 3,850 farming area pupils) had been performed in the areas of Kwangju-city, Hwasun-gun from December, 1976 to June, 1977. At first, Diastix was used for detecting glucosuria in one to two hourpostprandial urine and pupils who showed even 0.1% sugar in urine were considered for glucosuria. Children with glucosuria were given the oral glucose tolerance tests using 1.75gm of glucose per kg body weight. Chemical diabetes was diagnosed the cases whose blood sugar values 1 hour after glucose loading were over 170mg/dl and 2 hours after glucose loading over 120mg/dl. Cases which met only one criteria were applied to cortisone-primed oral glucose tolerance test according to the method of Fajan and Conn. If the bolld sugar value 1 hour after glucose administration was over 180mg/dl and the sugar balue 2 hours after glucose administration was over 140mg/dl, suspected diabetes was diagnosed. The results were obtained as follows 1) The overall positive rate of glucosuria was 0.167%(22 of 13,152 cases). Male pupils showed 0.188%(12 of 6,387 cases) and female pupils 0.148(10 of 6,965 cases), and pupils in Kwangju-cith 0.161%(15 of 9,302 cases) and those in farming area 0.182%(7 of 3,850 cases). 2) 13 of total 22 pupils with glucosuria revealed abnormality in glucose tolerance(59.1%). 3) Of 13 children with abnormal glucose tolerance, 3 were overt diabetes(23.1%), 6 were chemical diabetes(46.2%) and 4 were suspected diabetes(30.8%). 4) The overall pervalence rate of diabetes mellitus was 0.099%, consisting of 0.125% in boy and 0.074% in girl, and consiting of 0.086% in school school children of Kwangju-city and 0.130% in those of farming area. 5) Of 13 children with abnormal glucose tolerance, 12 children were in the age group of 10 years and over 10 years.