Diet, serum cholesterol, protein, blood haemoglobin, and glycosuria in a West Indian community: St. Kitts, W.I

Analyses of diets of St. Kitts negro labourers indicate that they are low in calories, protein, and especially fat, and resemble estimates from other West Indian groups. Serum cholesterol concentrations are lower in men than in women of like age, and those of women do not show a "menopausal" rise. Serum lipoprotein analyses in women yield similar information. Serum totals protein is higher than in North Americans because of high concentrations of gamma-globulin. Blood haemoglobin concentrations are lower than in North Americans, possibly as a result of a marginally adquate protein intake. Prevalence of glycosuria in about 14 per 1,000 at ages 20-49. Ischaemic heart disease attributable to coronary atherosclerosis, or thrombosis, was found in about 1 percent of men aged 40-49 and women aged 45-49. The data again exemplify the concurrence of low subsistence diets, largely of vegetable origin, and of hard work with a low prevalence of ischaemic heart disease.(AU)

Arterial pressure and hypertensive disease in a West Indian Negro population: report of a survey in St. Kitts, West Indies

The means of systolic and diastolic arterial pressures of 1,575 Negro villagers of St. Kitts, West Indies, aged 20 to 29 years, are higher than those of white groups of like age in the Bahamas and in the United States after about age 30 years: means of blood pressures are higher in Kittitian women than in men at 35 years of age and over. This population tends to be muscular rather than commonly obese; means of pressures show only moderate associations with increasing body weight (decreasing ponderal index), except among women aged 40 to 49, in whom the recorded pressures may have been increased by the artifact of arm size. The intake of sodium chloride at meals and the output in the definite association with distribution of arterial pressures. The survey was unique in that it aimed at assessment of severity as well as prevalence of hypertension. Data indicate that the hypertension is not often severe in the age group studied; the syndrome of malignant hypertension was encountered doubtfully only once in 275 subjects with diastolic pressures of 100 mm. Hg or more. Fundal changes greater than Grade II were uncommon, as were electrocadiographic signs of left ventricular hypertensive vascular disease were mild retinal changes (Grades I or II) and slight proteinuria. Although this assessment was less complete than we hoped that it would be, the praticality of clinical evaluation in field surveys has been established. Since the means of blood pressures of Kittitians parallel those of Bahamian and Georgian (United States) Negroes, the predisposition of American Negroes to arterial hypertension seems to be a racial trait which might be advantageously studied in terms of levels of autonomic function.(AU)