Glucose tolerance, nutrition, and diabetes in Uruguay, Venezuela, Malaya, and East Pakistan
West, K.M.; Kalbfleisch, J.M.
Diabetes 15(1): 9-18
1966
ISSN/ISBN: 0012-1797 PMID: 5907153 DOI: 10.2337/diab.15.1.9Document Number: 520039
In each of 4 countries (Uruguay, Venezuela, Malaya and East Pakistan) where diets and other environmental factors differ greatly, the prevalence of diabetes as determined by impaired glucose tolerance was crudely estimated. Since all subjects received glucose loads, rates of prevalence are much higher than those obtainable by certain less sensitive standard methods. In the tested subjects over 30 years of age the prevalence of "diabetes" (2-hour venous blood glucose levels greater than 149 mg%) was 6.9% in Uruguay (6.8% for males and 6.9% for females). The prevalence of impaired tolerance in this age group in Venezuela was 7.3% (4.5% in males and 9.4% in females), while in Malaya the rate was only 3.5% (4.5% in males and 2.1% in females). In East Pakistan impaired tolerance was present in only 1.5% of this age group (1.2% of males and 2.8% of females). Comparable data are not available in the USA but with use of the techniques employed abroad it was found that 17.2% of volunteers in this age group in a Pennsylvania community had impaired tolerance. In East Pakistan, 83% of calories were derived from carbohydrate. Comparable figures were 77% for Malaya, 62% for Venezuela and 53% for Uruguay. In East Pakistan, only 7% of the dietary calories were derived from fat; in Malaya, fat accounted for 21% of dietary calories, in Venezuela, 24%, and in Uruguay, 33%. In East Pakistan only 29% of dietary fat was animal fat. In Malaya, Venezuela, and Uruguay, comparable figures were 30, 35 and 62%, respectively. In Uruguay, 34.4% of the subjects were "obese" (30% or more over "standard" weight), and in Venezuela 14.8% were obese. In contrast none of the subjects from Malaya (566 persons), or East Pakistan (519 persons), was obese by these criteria. In Venezuela and Uruguay there was an association between the prevalence of diabetes and both parity and a history of large babies.