Obesity & Diabetes: An experience at a public sector tertiary care hospital

Objective: To detect the frequency of Obesity in type 2 diabetic patients. Methods: It was a Cross Sectional study carried out at Diabetes Clinic, Medical Unit III, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre Karachi from 1(st) Jan 2012 to 30(th) June 2012. Three hundred and eighty seven (387) type II diabetic patients of either sex and any age were included in the study. Non-purposive convenience sampling technique was used to enroll patients in the study. History regarding diabetes, hypertension (HTN), Cerebrovascular Accidents (CVA), smoking and other tobacco exposure was taken. Physical examination was carried out and height, weight, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, peripheral pulses and ankle-brachial index (ABI) was calculated. Categorical variables such as Gender, Age groups, BMI groups, HTN, smoking, hyperlipidemia and ABI were expressed as frequencies and proportions. Means with standard deviations were calculated for continuous variables such as age, duration of diabetes, BMI, duration of HTN and duration dyslipidemia. For categorical variables, differences between patients were tested using the chi-square test. P value of ≤ 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Males were 128 in number (33%) and female were 259 in number (67%). Mean age was 52 yrs (+/- 9.67) and the mean duration of diabetes was 9.36 yrs (+/- 6.39). Hypertension was seen in 210 people (54%). 49(12.7%) were smokers and 39(10%) chewed tobacco. Normal BMI was seen in 62 patients (16%), 44 (11.4%) were overweight and 281(72.6%) was obese. Obesity was much more prevalent amongst the female gender that is 208(80%) versus male which was 73 (57%) and this was statistically significant (p-value 0.001). Hypertension was also more prevalent in obese patients and was statistically significant (p-value 0.04). Statistically significant lower mean BMI was found in smokers, tobacco chewers and/or had exposure to tobacco (0.001, 0.04, and 0.001 respectively). Conclusion: The study shows that there is a strong association of diabetes with obesity. Female gender had relatively higher BMI. Hypertension was more prevalent in obese diabetic subjects. Smoking and nicotine exposure was associated with significantly lower BMI.