The Presence of Diabetes Mellitus or Pre-diabetes Mellitus Increases Mortality from Heart Disease in a Taiwanese Population: A 10-year Follow-Up Study.

BACKGROUND: We evaluated hyperglycemia-associated mortality in the Taiwanese population by conducting a 10-year retrospective cohort study. METHODS: From 2007 to 2017, all participants, regardless of their age or underlying diseases, were identified at a Health Screening Center in Taiwan. Overall, 114,534 participants were included in the analysis. They were classified into three subgroups according to glycemia and smoking status by combining survival for data analysis. RESULTS: The mean follow-up time, age, and body mass index (BMI) were 8.14 ± 2.22 years, 40.95 ± 12.14 years, and 23.24 ± 3.65 kg/m2, respectively. The cumulative death rate increased from 0.9% in the normal fasting blood glucose(FBG) subgroup to approximately 6% in the diabetes FBG subgroup. After adjusting for age, gender, BMI, high-density lipoprotein, triglycerides, waist circumference(WC), and smoking status, the hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause, cancer, and heart disease mortality in the diabetes mellitus(DM) subgroup was 1.560, 1.381, and 1.828, respectively.HR was 0.989 in all-cause, 0.940 in cancer, and 1.326 in heart disease in the pre-DM subgroup. CONCLUSION: Being tested for pre-DM is related to a higher risk of death from heart disease in the Taiwanese population at baseline. Therefore, cardiovascular risk must be actively measured among diabetes patients every visit.

Waist Circumference Is More Closely Associated with Hypogonadism than Is Hyperglycemia, Independent of BMI in Middle-Aged Men.

INTRODUCTION: To evaluate whether waist circumference (WC) or hyperglycemia is more closely associated with hypogonadism in middle-aged men. Research Design and Methods. This cross-sectional study analyzed male participants under 65 years old from the MJ Health Screening Center in Taiwan from 2007 to 2016. Basic patient characteristics with relevant parameters were obtained. We used the chi-square test to perform a correlation analysis for HbA1c and WC between participants with and without hypogonadism. A one-way ANOVA with post hoc Scheffe's method was applied to compare the mean testosterone (T) among the HbAlc and WC groups (normal blood sugar with normal WC (NBSNW), abnormal blood sugar with normal WC (ABSNW), normal blood sugar with abnormal WC (NBSAW), and abnormal blood sugar with abnormal waist circumference (ABSAW)). RESULTS: The 5,680 participants were divided into two groups based on the presence (n = 599) or absence of hypogonadism (n = 5,081), which was defined as total testosterone (TT) < 300 ng/dL. The mean TT of group NBSAW (443.71 ± 220.59 ng/dl) was significantly lower than that of group ABSNW (506.64 ± 191.08 ng/dl, p < 0.001). Moreover, the mean TT of group ABSAW (398.89 ± 146.24 ng/dl) was significantly lower than that of group ABSNW (506.64 ± 191.08 ng/dl, p < 0.001). The ORs after adjusting for BMI, TG, HDL, SBP, and DBP were statistically significant when comparing NBSAW vs. NBSNW (OR = 2.846; 95%CI = 2.266-3.575; p < 0.001), ABSNW vs. NDNW (OR = 1.693; 95%CI = 1.309-2.189; p < 0.001), and ABSAW vs. NBSNW (OR = 4.613; 95%CI = 3.634-5.856; p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The current study showed that WC should be the risk factor that is more closely associated with hypogonadism than hyperglycemia in middle-aged men.