A Survey for Unknown Diabetics in a Mental Hospital: II. Men from Age Fifty

Abstract

A 100 gm. two-hour oral glucose tolerance test was administered to an institutional group of 213 mentally ill men who were fifty to eighty-eight years old and without known diabetes. Thereafter, the test was selectively repeated. In thirty-two cases results were interpreted, in association with other data, as consistent with previously unknown, unsuspected diabetes — an incidence of 15 per cent. Discovery of this high incidence is attributed to universal employment of the glucose tolerance test. The influence of phenothiazine therapy on carbohydrate metabolism was partially examined with inconclusive results and requires further study.