Increased prediabetes, undiagnosed diabetes in premenopausal women in past 2 decades
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Rates of prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes increased among premenopausal women in the past 2 decades along with significant cardiovascular risk burden, researchers reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
“Prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes have been increasing at a greater rate in women of reproductive age compared to the overall adult populations in the U.S.,” Yilin Yoshida, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine in the section of endocrinology and metabolism at Tulane University School of Medicine, told Healio. “Young women also face an equivalent or even higher cardiometabolic risk burden, such as obesity, hypercholesterolemia and hypertension, associated with prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes relative to men in the same age groups.”
Researchers utilized the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data from 1999-2018 to estimate the age-adjusted prevalence of prediabetes, diagnosed diabetes and undiagnosed diabetes among premenopausal women. Researchers also assessed CV disease risk factors, such as obesity, central obesity, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension and hypertriglyceridemia, that were linked to prediabetes, diagnosed diabetes and undiagnosed diabetes in this patient population.
Researchers observed 5.2% of premenopausal women with diagnosed diabetes and 2.5% with undiagnosed diabetes. In the past 2 decades, premenopausal women experienced an increase in prediabetes prevalence from 20% in 2005-2008 to 28% in 2015-2018, which is in contrast with the high but steady trend in all adults (34.5%), researchers wrote. They also observed an increase in undiagnosed diabetes among premenopausal women from 1.7% in 1999-2002 to 3.5% in 2015-2018, whereas there was a slight decline among all adults (from 3.1% to 2.9%).
Premenopausal women with prediabetes or a diagnosis of diabetes had a significant threefold risk for obesity (OR = 2.8; 95% CI, 2.1-3.7) and central obesity (OR = 2.8; 95% CI, 2-3.9), which was equivalent to risks observed for age-matched men and higher than the risks observed for postmenopausal women, according to the researchers.
Only premenopausal women had a significant association between prediabetes and hypercholesterolemia or hypertriglyceridemia. Both hypercholesterolemia and hypertension were significantly associated with undiagnosed diabetes among premenopausal women and age-adjusted men. Both diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes were associated with hypertriglyceridemia among age-adjusted men and postmenopausal women.
“More research should focus on a life-course evaluation of risk factors in women to provide more understanding of women’s excessive CVD risk in CVD, which is a poorly understood sex disparity in diabetes,” Yoshida said.
For more information:
Yilin Yoshida, PhD, MPH, can be reached at yyoshida1@tulane.edu.
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