Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between cardiovascular risk factors and the presence of diabetes in a large population-level dataset.
Methods: A secondary analysis was conducted using data from the 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a population-based survey (n = 403,137) conducted in the United States.
Results: The majority of the respondents were middle-aged and overweight. Approximately half of the sample reported little or no physical activity. Estimates from a logistic regression model for a weighted sample of white, black, and Hispanic adults revealed that having hypertension or elevated cholesterol was a strong predictor of diabetes even when controlling for age, gender, race, education, income, body mass index, smoking status, and physical activity.
Conclusions: The results confirmed the importance of diabetes educators counseling patients with hypertension or hypercholesterolemia about their increased risk for developing diabetes.