Prevalence of diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome in Slovakia.

Background: Slovakia is a country with high prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) and coronary heart disease (CHD), but the reason of west-east gradient prevalence in Europe is not clear.

Methods: We analyzed 1517 subjects responding to structure of Slovak adult population according to age, sex and regions. Self-reporting CHD risk factors, waist circumference, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, levels of fasting and 2h glucose, triglycerides, and HDL cholesterol were examined.