Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Association of Biochemical Markers, Hepatitis C Virus and Diabetes Mellitus in Pakistani Males

Muhammad Faisal Bashir^1,2, Muhammad Saleem Haider³ , Naeem Rashid¹, Saba Riaz^2,4

¹School of Biological Sciences, University of the Punjab, Lahore 54590; ²Division of Molecular Pathology, Citi lab and Research Centre, 525 A Faisal Town, Lahore; ³Institute of Agricultural Sciences; ⁴Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of the Punjab, Lahore 54590, Pakistan.

For correspondence:- Muhammad Haider Email: haider65us@yahoo.com Tel:+9242 99231846

Received: 26 December 2012 Accepted: 4 June 2013 Published: 18 October 2013

Citation: Bashir MF, Haider MS, Rashid N, Riaz S. Association of Biochemical Markers, Hepatitis C Virus and Diabetes Mellitus in Pakistani Males. Trop J Pharm Res 2013; 12(5):845-850 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v12i5.27

© 2013 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the association between Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection and diabetes mellitus (DM), and the effects of these pathological conditions on some biochemical markers in Pakistanis.

Methods: A total number of 4717 chronic HCV patients were enrolled in this study out of which 4250 were positive with the enzyme linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA). Out of this, HCV was detected in 3513 samples by qualitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR positive samples were divided into: HCV without diabetes ( n = 3136) and HCV with diabetes ( n = 377) groups; 130 patients with diabetes only (negative for HCV ELISA) were also included in the study. Biochemical tests of all three groups were performed to determine liver, diabetic and lipid profiles.

Results: There was increased prevalence of HCV alone and HCV + diabetes patients in the 4^th decade of life. Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) titers were higher in HCV patients with diabetes than in HCV patients without diabetes (p ≤ 0.001). Fasting blood glucose was greater in HCV patients with diabetes than in diabetes only patients. Total cholesterol and triglyceride were moderately lower in non-diabetic HCV patients than in diabetes only patients (p ≤ 0.005). However, total cholesterol and triglyceride levels were significantly higher in HCV patients with diabetes than in the other two groups (p ≤ 0.001).

Conclusion: There is positive correlation of HCV with diabetes in the population studied. This association is more pronounced (where there are elevated levels of triglyceride and fasting blood glucose) in HCV patients with diabetes than diabetes patients without HCV infection.

Keywords: Hepatitis C, Diabetes mellitus, Biochemical markers, Lipid profile, Glycosylated haemoglobin