Chronic Hepatitis C and Diabetes Mellitus

We often see type-2 diabetes mellitus (DM) in the patients admitted to our clinics for chronic hepatitis C. Thereforey, we decide to examine the patients with chronic viral hepatitis (B and C) for DM and the patients with type-2 DM for HBsAg and anti-HCV antibodies. Group-1 was consisted of 72 patients with chronic hepatitis B and 38 patients with chronic hepatitis C between 1990 and 1995 (n=110). The patients who admitted to hospital for type-2 DM second half of 1995 consisted of group-2. In these two group, we searched the transaminases, other biochemical tests and viral hepatitis markers with ELISA method. We found type-2 DM in 34.2% of patients with chronic hepatitis C and 2.7% of chronic B hepatitis group (p<0.001). All of type-2 DM with chronic hepatitis had not any genetic predisposition for DM. Type-2 DM was diagnosed in 2/3 of the patients after chronic hepatitis C was diagnosed. In the patients with type-2 DM, rates of HBsAg and anti-HCV positivity were found 5% and 6% respectively. The prevalence of HBsAg positiveness is the same as general population value of 5 (4-11)%. Percentage (6%) of anti HCV positiveness in diabetics is significantly higher than normal population value of 0.6 (0.2-1)% (p