Control to goal of cardiometabolic risk factors among Nigerians living with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Background: Cardiovascular risk factors contribute to morbidity and mortality among diabetic patients. National and international guidelines on management of diabetes therefore emphasize control to goals of blood glucose, blood pressure, dyslipidemia, and obesity so as to minimize the development of complications and enhance the patients’ quality of life. Objective: To evaluate the status of control to goals of cardiometabolic risk factors among the diabetic patients attending the Diabetes clinic of University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu. Materials and Methods: A survey of 233 type 2 diabetic patients recruited from the Diabetes clinic of our hospital was carried out. Standard procedures as described in the WHO STEP instrument were used to determine the waist circumference, weight, height, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Fasting blood glucose and lipid profiles were also assessed. Therapeutic goals used to define risk or poor control were values adopted by expert groups such as American diabetes association (ADA), National cholesterol education program (NCEP), American association of clinical endocrinologist (AACE) and International diabetes federation (IDF). Results: There were 98 males and 135 females with mean (SD) duration of diabetes mellitus (DM) of 6.7 (6.3) years. Suboptimal glycemic, blood pressure control and dyslipidemia were observed in 65.7%, 51.9%, 97.1% of the subjects respectively while 60.1% of the subjects were found to be overweight/obese. Comparing the mean indices of risk factors with the recommended therapeutic goals, status of control was optimal for HDL cholesterol, waist circumference and triglycerides. All the other risk factors were suboptimal. Conclusion: Control to goals of cardiovascular risk factors is poor among the patients. There is the need to identify and tackle the possible contributing factors so as to reduce the morbidity and mortality in these patients.