Blood sugar in executives

Abstract

The blood sugars of presumptively healthy male executives attending for a routine check-up have been analysed. One group of 4227 men had their random blood sugar measured and another of 634 had blood sugar measured two hours after a 50 g. glucose load. The two groups were comparable in all respects except for mean and variance of blood sugar and the incidence of glycosuria. Mean blood sugar increases with age. This effect may be altered by glucose loading. It may be due to an increase in pathological hyperglycemia rather than to a pathological effect of age. A family history of diabetes leads to higher mean blood sugar levels. No correlation was found between relative weight, exercise, stress, cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. The results are compared with those from other surveys. They support the suggestion that executives as a group may have different mean blood sugar levels from other occupational groups. However, owing to problems of selection and different methodology, this cannot be regarded as proved.