Frederick Vuvor
University of Ghana, Ghana
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Diabetes Metab
Introduction: There has been growing concern recently about the rising prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) a diet related, noncommunicable (NCD) and metabolic disease globally. DM has been linked to increasing socioeconomic status (SES) which is invariably associated with changes in both food and eating habits. This relationship is inconsistent among different populations. Materials & Methods: The purpose of this work was to investigate the relationship between socio-demographic status and prevalence of DM in a deprived peri-urban community in Ghana. It was a cross-sectional study of 171 randomly selected adult males and females aged 18-45 years from 90 peri-urban households. It was part of larger study (Lysine Project) that looked at the effect of lysine supplementation on indicators of stress and nutritional status in a peri-urban population in Ghana. Demographic and socioeconomic information were gathered from the household head and fasting blood sugar was also determined. Differences and associations in the various indicators measured were tested for statistical significance using ANOVA, correlation, cross-tabulation and t-test. Logistic regression was used to determine the point estimate (odds ratio) and interval estimate (95% confidence interval) that measures the risk factors (age, sex and BMI). P value�0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The mean age among subjects was 32.8±7.4 years. The average prevalence of diabetes among subjects was 8.2% (6.8% for men and 9.6% for women). In general, the study observed a significant association between fasting blood glucose level and BMI (p=0.047, r=0.152). The results further revealed that there is a positive significant association between age and fasting blood sugar level among respondents (P=0.006, r=0.209). Persons from higher income household were at a higher risk (OR=3.9, CI=1.1-14.0) of becoming diabetic as compared to those from lower income households upon adjusting for household size and marital status. Conclusion: Persons from high income households have an increased risk of becoming overweight and getting diabetes as compared to those from low income households.
Email: fredvuvor@yahoo.com
