Archives of Endocrinology and Metabolism ()

High prevalence of insulin resistance among Brazilian chronic hepatitis C patients

  • Livia Melo Villar,
  • Gabriela Cardoso Caldas,
  • Leticia de Paula Scalioni,
  • Juliana Custódio Miguel,
  • Elisangela Ferreira da Silva,
  • Vanessa Alves Marques,
  • Cristiane Alves Villela-Nogueira,
  • Lia Laura Lewis-Ximenez,
  • Elisabeth Lampe

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/2359-3997000000315
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 61, no. 6
pp. 628 – 632

Abstract

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ABSTRACT Objective: This study aims to estimate the prevalence of insulin resistance (IR) among chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients and their related laboratory and demographic data. Subjects and methods: In this study, non-diabetic CHC patients referred to Viral Hepatitis Ambulatories from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) donated blood samples. Insulin was measured using a chemiluminescence immunoassay. IR was determined by HOMA-IR, where HOMA-IR > 2 was defined as IR. Results: A total of 214 CHC patients were recruited (123 females aged 53.6 years ± 10.9 years). IR was present in 133 patients (62.1%) and was associated in bivariate analysis to higher mean values of age (p = 0.040), triglycerides (p = 0.032), glucose (p = 0.000), insulin (p = 0.000), waist circumference (p = 0.001), and body mass index (p = 0.007); however, none of these variables were significant in the multivariate analysis. Conclusions: The high prevalence of IR was observed among CHC patients, and there was no difference in clinical or laboratory parameters when both groups were compared in the multivariate analysis. This high IR prevalence could lead to a high risk for development of cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders.

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