Diabetes and metabolic disorders twice as common among Travellers

DIABETES, PRE-DIABETES and metabolic syndrome are “at least twice as common” among Travellers as among the general population, a study published this week indicates.

Metabolic syndrome refers to a clustering of a number of coronary heart disease risk factors including hyperinsulinaemia, glucose intolerance, obesity, and hypertension.

The report, Traveller Health: Prevalence of Diabetes, Pre-diabetes and the Metabolic Syndrome and published in the forthcoming issue of the Irish Medical Journal, is based on a study assessing the frequency of the conditions among a sample group of 47 Travellers in the Galway area.

In their introduction, the authors say the prevalence of type 2 diabetes is unknown in the Traveller community “but may be higher than the background population due to obesity, poor diet, low socioeconomic status and intermarriage”.

Nine men and 38 women took part in the study which involved their overnight fasting and blood testing the following morning. People known to have diabetes, pre-diabetes or a metabolic disorder, and children, were excluded.

“Overall 70 per cent of the subjects had evidence of abdominal obesity and 43 per cent had systolic hypertension.

“Pre-diabetes, diabetes and the metabolic syndrome were at least twice as common in the Traveller population when compared to data available for the background Irish population.”

The study says that of the 47 sample population four (8.5 per cent) had diabetes, compared with 4.3 per cent in the general population.

Of the 47 Travellers studied, five (11.6 per cent) had pre-diabetes, compared with 6.3 per cent in the general population.