Abstract Body: Background: In Japan, the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred in 2011, and people in Fukushima were affected by the earthquake, Tsunami, and radiation from the nuclear power plant accident. As a result, an increase in lifestyle-related diseases has been reported, but long-term trends in overweight and diabetes mellitus (DM) in whole Fukushima Prefecture have not been reported.
Hypothesis: The prevalence of overweight and DM are higher in evacuation areas after the disaster.
Methods: A total of 3,861,563 residents of Fukushima aged 40-74 years who participated in specific health check-ups during 2008-17, with the sufficient data were included. Fukushima was divided into evacuation area and other 3 areas, and age-adjusted prevalence rates were calculated for each area in each year and compared using Poisson regression models. Annual percent change (APC) was also calculated for each year using the Joinpoint regression program. Overweight was defined as BMI ≥ 25 kg/m², and DM as HbA1c ≥ 6.5%, fasting blood glucose 126 mg/dl, or medication use.
Results: The prevalence of overweight increased in all regions after the disaster and did not decrease thereafter. The increase was more evident in evacuation areas regardless of sex and age. The change in prevalence from 2010-12 was from 33.5 to 38.4% for men and 26.5 to 30.1% for women in the evacuation areas, and the APCs were 7.0(2.7-11.5) for men and 6.2(3.2-9.3) for women for the entire period (2008-17) with no inflection point. The prevalence of DM increased slowly after the disaster in the non-evacuation areas, but increased rapidly in the evacuation areas until 2013, and then slowly thereafter. In the evacuation areas, the percentage change from 2010-13 was from 11.8 to 14.9% in men and from 5.7 to 8.5% in women, and the APCs were 3.3(1.7-4.9) for the entire period in men, and -0.9(-0.2-2.1) for 2010-17 in women with the inflection point in 2010 (p=0.02). The increase in the prevalence of DM in the evacuation area was more evident with those aged ≥60, increasing from 11.4 to 15.9% in 2010-13.
Conclusions: The prevalence of overweight and DM in Fukushima increased after the disaster, and did not decrease with particularly large increases in the evacuation areas. Longitudinal analysis examining the association between lifestyle and overweight and DM is needed.