Abstract
The histories of 2083 non-insulin dependent diabetics (1180 males, 903 females) who visited the Diabetic Unit of the Third Department of Internal Medicine, Tokyo University, between 1957 and 1985 were analyzed to identify chronological changes in the characteristics of Japanese diabetics.
Our study showed that age at diagnosis decreased (49±12 y. o. in the '50s vs 47±12 y. o. in the '80s), and that the duration of diabetes at the initial visit was prolorgel (4±6 years vs 7±7 years). Both the percentage of patients with symptoms at diagnosis and those with symptoms at the initial visit decreased by half (92% vs 54%, 72% vs 38%, respectively), and the percentage of patients with a diabetic family history doubled (22% vs 46%) during the same peried.The percentage of patients treated with oral agents prior to their initial visit was higher before the 1970s and decreased after that time.No change over time was found with regard to sex, age at the initial visit, maximum obesity or percentage of those with a family history of hypertension.
Our results suggest that Japanese diabetics have been diagnosed earlier and more asymptomatically in recent years. However, patients who visited university hospitals became a biased group with a long history of diabetes at the time of the initial visit.
