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The prevalence of diabetes mellitus and glucose intolerance in Guía is one of the highest among studied Caucasian populations. The new 1997 ADA criteria estimate a lower prevalence of diabetes. Impaired fasting glucose also had a lower prevalence than impaired glucose intolerance and the overlap of these categories was modest.

Serum lipids and apolipoprotein levels were measured in twenty postmenopausal women with primary breast cancer, before and three months after tamoxifen therapy (10 mg twice a day). Tamoxifen caused a significant reduction in total serum cholesterol (10%; P < 0.02), and in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (17%; P < 0.01), and a significant 47% increase in the subclass 2 of the high density lipoprotein cholesterol (P < 0.01). In addition, tamoxifen caused a 16% increase in apolipoprotein A-I, a 12% decrease in apolipoprotein B (P < 0.05), and a 37% reduction in the serum concentration of lipoprotein (a) (P < 0.01). These results show that tamoxifen brings about an important improvement in serum lipid profile.

Studies of the association between porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT) and primary liver cancer have produced conflicting reports. The incidence of this liver tumor was studied in 138 PCT patients (7.2%) and in 358 non‐porphyric cirrhotic patients (5.6%), and no statistically significant differences were found between them (p>0.5). Nevertheless the incidence of such association was significantly higher (chi square=10.91, p<0.001) in the PCT group (24.3%) than in the non‐porphyric cirrhotic group (6.7%) when only males with underlying liver cirrhosis were considered. These results suggest that the high incidence of liver tumor in PCT is not merely related to hepatic cirrhosis. The cause of such as association remains unclear. Primary liver cancer may reveal a prior deficiency in uroporphyrinogen‐decarboxylase, but the possibility that the enzyme abnormalities were caused by the liver carcinoma also exists.

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