Glucose abnormalities in Hepatitis patients

Two thirds of patients with chronic hepatitis C infection have abnormal blood sugar levels.Researchers from Japan compared the prevalence and characteristics of glucose abnormalities among 522 chronic hepatitis C patients and 447 patients without hepatitis C infection. The subjects who were known to have diabetes were excluded from the study. The data was assessed upon the different stages of glucose abnormalities based on oral glucose tolerance test. They found that over one third i.e. 34 percent of the hepatitis C patients had normal results on the oral glucose test, whereas 43 percent had impaired glucose tolerance and 23 percent had undiagnosed diabetes. In contrast, 65 percent of the controls had normal levels of glucose, 32 percent had impaired glucose tolerance and 3 percent had diabetes. A family history of diabetes, male gender, advanced fibrosis stage of hepatitis, and increasing age increase the risk of having glucose abnormalities.It was noted that two consecutive fasting plasma glucose measurements or randomly measured glucose levels greater than 200 mg/dl were not sufficient to confirm glucose abnormalities in the patients with chronic hepatitis C infection.The researchers concluded that chronic hepatitis C patients carried a high prevalence of glucose abnormalities. Therefore, careful evaluation for undetected glucose abnormalities is essential in caring for chronic hepatitis C patients.

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