Affiliations 

  • 1 Departments of Epidemiology and Medicine, and Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
  • 2 Center for Cohort Studies, Total Healthcare Center, Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University, School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • 3 National Center for Epidemiology, Carlos III Institute of Health and Consortium for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
  • 4 Department of Family Medicine, Kangbuk Samsung Hospital and Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • 5 Departments of Epidemiology and Medicine, and Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. jcho@skku.edu
  • 6 Departments of Epidemiology and Medicine, and Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. eguallar@jhu.edu
Sci Rep, 2017 07 04;7(1):4606.
PMID: 28676706 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-04206-6

Abstract

The role of hepatitis virus infection in glucose homeostasis is uncertain. We examined the associations between hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and the development of diabetes in a cohort (N = 439,708) of asymptomatic participants in health screening examinations. In cross-sectional analyses, the multivariable-adjusted odds ratio for prevalent diabetes comparing hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) (+) to HBsAg (-) participants was 1.17 (95% CI 1.06-1.31; P = 0.003). The corresponding odds ratio comparing hepatitis C antibodies (HCV Ab) (+) to HCV Ab (-) participants was 1.43 (95% CI 1.01-2.02, P = 0.043). In prospective analyses, the multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio for incident diabetes comparing HBsAg (+) to HbsAg (-) participants was 1.23 (95% CI 1.08-1.41; P = 0.007). The number of incident cases of diabetes among HCV Ab (+) participants (10 cases) was too small to reliably estimate the prospective association between HCV infection and diabetes. In this large population at low risk of diabetes, HBV and HCV infections were associated with diabetes prevalence and HBV infection with the risk of incident diabetes. Our studies add evidence suggesting that diabetes is an additional metabolic complication of HBV and HCV infection.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.