Prevalence and risk factors for diabetes mellitus in a selected urban population of a city in Punjab

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (diagnosed and undiagnosed), impaired fasting glucose and possible risk factors for diabetes mellitus among Pakistani population.Methods: This cross sectional study was performed in Rawalpindi which is one of the cities in Northern Punjab of Pakistan in July 2008. An area was selected in Rawalpindi city, with mixed population representative of almost all provinces with different socioeconomic groups. Three hundred and thirteen houses were selected through systematic random sampling technique and fasting blood glucose was obtained and subjects were labeled to have diabetes according to WHO criteria of diagnosing diabetes mellitus. The statistical analysis was performed by using Stata version 10.Results: There were 1091 respondents who were selected after cleaning the data, among them 293 were males and 798 were females. Of the total 15.41% of the males and 12.31% of females were found to have diabetes mellitus. Thus making a total prevalence of 13.14%. Impaired fasting glucose (IFG) was found in 5.14% males and 5.78% females making a total prevalence of 5.61%. Over all (DM IFG) was found to be 20.55% in males and 18.09% in females. The main risk factors identified were obesity, family history, hypertension and increasing age.Conclusion: There is an increased prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in Pakistan and main risk factors identified were obesity, overweight, family history of diabetes mellitus, and hypertension.