Background and aim: Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and Diabetes mellitus (DM) etiology are still unclear, but both have genetic basis and share several complications. So we aimed to search for whether the two diseases are associated with each other and whether there are risk factors that increase the incidence of diabetes mellitus in inflammatory bowel disease patients.
Methods: This study was conducted on 130 inflammatory bowel disease patients who were diagnosed by colonoscopy and biopsy from EL-Raghy Assiut University Hospital and were not known to have DM before the study in the period from October 2019 to June 2021.
These patients underwent a full history, a thorough clinical examination, and routine lab investigation, especially fasting blood sugar (FBS) and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c).
Results:Out of 130 patients; 26 (20%) were found to be diabetics and the other 104 (80%) were non-diabetics. The mean age of the studied patients was 32.45 ± 9.05 years, majority (78.5%) of them were males. And we found that patients with DM were significantly younger than those without DM. The family history of DM was higher among those patients with DM. The susceptibility of DM is increasing with the lengthening of IBD duration. No significant difference was present between both groups of patients as regards the type of treatment for IBD.
Conclusion: Diabetes mellitus risk increases in patients with IBD who are younger than 30 years old, have a positive family history of diabetes mellitus, and have had IBD for more than 3 years.