Background: Both diabetes mellitus (DM) & Parkinson disease (PD are common disorders. Variable neurologic consequences are common in diabetes including PD. Parkinson disease and DM have been linked through many epidemiologic studies but with conflicting conclusions that ranged from inverse association to positive association.
Aim of the study: To observe the proportion of DM among PD patients, and to study the variations in some demographic and clinical variables among them.
Patients and Method: a cross-sectional study enrolled 118 patients with PD who attended a tertiary neurology clinic over 9 months duration. The patients were divided into diabetic and nondiabetic and multivariate analysis was performed across some demographic and clinical features.
Results: This study enrolled 118 patients with PD; 29 of them was diabetic. Females was 56 (47.5%) and 62 male (52.5%) patients with a male: female ratio of 1.10. The mean PD duration was 4.9 years. Among diabetics, the male: female ratio dropped to 0.45 with statistical significance (p value = 0.007). The HY scale score medians and ranges was identical in both groups. There was a highly significant association between the early stage of Parkinson disease and diabetes duration below 10 years (p-value = 0.0001). Lower Hoehn and Yahr scale scores clustered around patients with less than 10 year diabetic history, while higher scores found in patients with more than 10 year diabetes history with a p-value of 0.0001.
Conclusion: Patients with concomitant DM and PD are predominantly females, had shorter disease duration and, had more severe clinical stage (especially when had DM for more than 10 years). However, causal relationship cannot be elucidated from our data.
International Journal of Advanced Research in Medicine
