By Ethan Covey
Diabetes is often underdiagnosed among people living with HIV, and screening of serum glucose levels may help identify patients at risk, according to data presented at the 32nd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), in Lisbon, Portugal.
“Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the most common comorbidities in people living with HIV, with a prevalence that is up to four times higher than the general population,” said Omer Bar Ziv, MSc, a clinical researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Medical School, in Israel.
The study aimed to detect undiagnosed prediabetes and DM in people with HIV, and to identify risk factors for glucose abnormalities (poster L0002).
A total of 268 individuals with HIV were included in the study. Of these, 233 with no known diabetes underwent an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and 35 who had been previously diagnosed with DM were included in the analysis of prediction for dysglycemia.
In the group of patients who underwent an OGTT, 6.4% had glucose values in the diabetic range and 44.6% had test results that qualified as prediabetic.
Both classic and HIV-related risk factors were associated with dysglycemia in univariate analysis. Older age, higher body mass index, low nadir CD4, and exposure to nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors were all independently associated with dysglycemia.
“[The results] highlight the importance of screening for glucose abnormalities in this high-risk population,” Mr. Bar Ziv said.
He added that he hopes additional follow-up and microbiome profile analysis will help to further clarify risk factors for these patients.
