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Glucose tolerance and the prevalence of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and diabetes in the Polynesian populations of Rarotonga and Niue were studied in 1980. Both Rarotongans and Niueans have been considerably influenced by sociocultural modernization and (in the case of Rarotonga) tourism. In both populations, the prevalence of abnormal glucose tolerance exceeded 10% in men and 15% in women. There was an association between glucose tolerance and age and obesity in both sexes, but not between glucose tolerance and physical activity. Glucose tolerance did not differ between Rarotongans and Niueans after allowing for differences in age and obesity. Comparisons between normal subjects, those with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and diabetic subjects with respect to factors that are traditionally associated with glucose intolerance provided some support for IGT as a truly intermediate diagnostic category of glucose tolerance.

Familial spastic paraplegia is described in four Cook Island children. Prior to the onset of the disease at age six or seven years, the children were apparently normal. Disease was characterised principally by progressive spastic paraplegia of the lower extremities, in addition to tremor and slow articulation. The disease in these children was probably due to the expression of an autosomal recessive gene. The disorder is of interest because the findings in these children appear to overlap the pure spastic and ataxic heredofamilial syndromes.