clustering of cardiovascular risk factors in diabetics and igt cases in isfahan province 2000-2001: isfahan healthy heart program

abstract  introduction: this study was conducted to cluster cardiac risk factors of patients and to compare the prevalence of these risk factors in diabetic patients and patients with glucose intolerance with normal people, and also to compare the prevalence of these factors in known and new cases of diabetes mellitus. methods: this descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample selected from isfahan province, iran, as part of a national program for cardiovascular diseases prevention and control. a total of 3940 male and female subjects (1914 males, 2026 females) aged above 19 years were studied. the demographic characteristics were obtained by questionnaire. important risk factors such as systolic blood pressure (sbp), diastolic blood pressure (dbp), waist circumference (wc), body mass index (bmi), fasting blood sugar (fbs), triglyceride (tg), total cholesterol (tc), high density lipoprotein (hdl-c), and low density lipoprotein (ldl-c) were assessed in the subjects. results: the prevalence of known cases of diabetes, new cases of diabetes, and glucose resistance was 4.3%, 1.1%, and 6.2% in the population under study, respectively. the prevalence of the above conditions was 4.9%, 1.2% and 1.1% in women, and 3.7%, 1% and 5.3% in men, respectively. comparison of the prevalence of blood lipid disorders showed a significant difference between patients and healthy individuals. the overall comparison of all of the risk factors also showed a significant difference between the said groups. the prevalence of blood lipid disorders in men was higher than in women and this difference was significant. comparison of the prevalence of increased bmi/wc and blood lipid disorders between two sexes revealed a significantly higher prevalence in women. discussion: the results of this study indicate a high prevalence of risk factors, especially increased prevalence of obesity and blood lipid disorders in cases of diabetes and glucose intolerance. hence, strategies for prevention and treatment of diabetes should be launched in the community in view of the extent of these risk factors. keywords . clustering of risk factors . known cases of diabetes . new cases of diabetes