Hepatitis C Virus Infection in the Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

The association of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection with diabetes mellitus (DM) is a well documented topic. However, it has been debated whether HCV infection is the additional risk factor for the development of DM or it is an associated disease. To determine the prevalence of HCV infection and associated risk factors in diabetic patients, we investigated anti-HCV antibody in the 207 patients with DM (mean age: 58.9 ± 9.3, range 38-85) and 254 control subjects (mean age: 54.0 ± 9.7, range 40-81) by ELISA method, and risk factors for HCV infection in diabetic patients. Statistical analysis was performed by chi-square test, t-test and logistic regression analysis. Anti-HCV was found positive in 16 (7.7%) of diabetic cases and 5 (2.0%) of the control subjects. According to this result, a higher seroprevalence of HCV infection was observed in patients with type 2 DM (p= 0.003). We did not detect any difference between anti-HCV positive and negative patients with respect to age, sex, duration of diabetes, hospital admission, mode of therapy and known risk factors for HCV infection (p> 0.05) whereas mean ALT levels was higher in anti-HCV positive patients (p= 0.05). The results of this study suggest that HCV infection in the diabetic patients seems a trigger factor rather than to be an associated disease.