Prevalence and clinical characteristics of Nigerian patients with early-onset Type 2 diabetes

Abstract

Background: The prevalence of early-onset type2 diabetes is increasing, and there are indications that the clinical characteristics may be different
from late-onset type2 diabetes. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of early-onset T2D among the clinic population of a tertiary academic health centre in Nigeria and to describe and compare the clinical characteristics of early and lateonset T2D.
Method: Demographic and clinical parameters were retrospectively retrieved from the case records of patients in the clinic registry of a diabetes clinic of an academic health institution. Patients with clinical T2D diagnosed =40 years (Early Onset T2D- ET2D) were compared with T2D patients diagnosed at >40 years (Late Onset T2D- LT2D). Data were captured and analysed using SPSS version 20. Categorical variables in the two groups were compared using Chi-Square, while continuous variables were compared using Student's t-test.
Results: Out of 589 subjects with complete data, 256 (43.5%) were males and had a mean current age of 60.1 (11.6) years and median diabetes duration of 10.0 (IQR 14.7). Prevalence of subjects with early-onset diabetes in the cohort was 17%. Diabetes duration was longer in ET2D than LT2D {10 (IQR 14.8) versus 7.0 (8.0), p = 0.000}. Proportion of ET2D with poor glycaemic control was significantly higher compared to LT2D {54 (70.1) versus 204 (53.3), p = 0.007}. Also more ET2D were on insulin compared with LT2D {31 (33.0) versus 97 (20.8), p = 0.029}.
Conclusion: ET2D patients of this Nigerian population appear to be significantly different in some clinical profile from LT2D. This may imply a possible lifetime increase in microvascular complications and cardiovascular events in a productive age group of society.