The Epidemiologic Study of Chronic Complications in Non-insulin-dependent Diabetes Mellitus

Lee, Dae Bae; Kim, Yong Joo; Kim, Jung Min; Kim, Myung Soo; Kim, Ji Youn; Yang, Seung Won; Chung, Dong Jin; Chung, Min Young; Lee, Tai Hee

Abstract

The relation between the duration of diabetes and the various complications of Korean diabetic patients is not conclusive. In order to estimate the prevalence of individual complications and its relation to the age of patients and to the duration of diabetes in Korean diabetics, we studied 994 NIDDM patients who were admitted to Chonnam University Hospital from January 1987 to December 1996. The result were as follows: 1) Diabetes was most prevalent in the 7th decade(38.5%). 32.7%, 32.8% of the patients were diagnosed at their 5th, 6th decade respectively. Average duration of diabetes was 8.75+/-7.3 years. 2) Among the microvascular complications, neuropathy showed 66,2% as their frequency and progressively increased from a value of less than 43.6% within 4 years of diabetes to more than 86.4% after 15years of the disease. 3) Overall prevalence of diabetic retinopathy was 44.8%. Background retinopathy and proliferative retinopathy showed 31.8%, 13.0% as their frequency respectively. 4) Overall prevalence of diabetic nephropathy was 24.8%. 22.8% of patients had proteinuria over 0.5mg/day and renal insufficiency was observed in 12.5% of patients. 5) Macrovascular complications were found in 24.6% of patients and the prevalence of cerebrovascular disease, ischemic heart disease were 9.4%, 16.1% respectively. 6) Other complications of diabetes mellitus were diabetic foot (5.4%), infection (16.6%), nonketotic hyperosmolar coma (1.5%), diabetic ketoacidosis (0.7%). In this study neuropathy and retinopathy are both associated with duration of diabetes, nephropathy is associated with duration of diabetes and hypertension. Our study showed that macrovascular complications are associated with the age of diabetic patients and hypertension.