Health status of Indian population--current scenario.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: We aimed at establishing reference intervals for the various biochemical and hematological analytes in healthy population. We also tried to find the percentage of people with coronary artery disease (CAD) and the associated risk factors in 39,940 subjects who had attended the health check up program at our hospital from the years 1996 to 2001. METHODS: The medical record folders of all the subjects were screened manually. Reference values were established using SPSS-8.0 package and the percentiles calculated and with it the corresponding 90% confidence interval (CI). RESULTS: The prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and coronary artery disease was found to be 22.5%, 14.2%, and 3.9% respectively. In addition only 41.1% of the population was found to be normolipemic. Most of the analytes showed reference intervals which were in agreement with our reporting values. There was no influence of diet on the reference intervals. Also, there were some analytes like lipids where it was felt that changing the reference values would assign the subjects at greater risk for CAD. CONCLUSION: Implementation of reference intervals in case of lipids poses a dilemma. Lifestyle and diet modifications would have to be implemented to reduce the burden of CAD in this population.