Screening the Risk Factors of Diabetes Mellitus in 1st year MBBS and BDS Students of a Medical College in Bangladesh

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a common and serious chronic debilitating disease. Until recently, type 2 diabetes has been typically regarded as a disease of the middle-aged and elderly. While this age group still maintains a higher risk than younger adults, evidence is accumulating that onset in those under 30 years is increasingly common. Type 2 diabetes and its complications constitute a major public health hazard affecting people in both developed and developing countries. Prevalence of type 2 diabetes has been increasing exponentially, across the World. Multiple risk factors of diabetes, delayed diagnosis, life-threatening complications, sub-therapeutic treatment, and higher treatment costs are some crucial barriers to the control of type 2 diabetes. Aim of the Study: This study aimed to assess the risk factors of T2D in 1st-year MBBS and BDS students of North East Medical College (NEMC), Sylhet, Bangladesh. Methods: This was an observational crosssectional study undertaken at the Endocrine Outpatient Department in a Tertiary Care Hospital, Sylhet, Bangladesh, during the period from November 2017 to February 2018. Non-probability purposive sampling was done. Out of 145 MBBS and BDS students who got admitted in session 2017-2018, data of 143 students were included as a part of regular medical checkup after permission of the concerned authority. As applicable, all data were expressed as frequencies and mean ±SD or mean ±SE. Student’s t-test and Chi-square test were conducted where the p-value <0.05 was considered significant. Data analysis was done using computer-based SPSS version-22.0. Results: Among the total of 143 participants, 36.8% were female, and the male-female ratio was 1:1.7. Among all of them, 53% belonged to the 17-20-year age group whereas the rest 47% belonged to the 21-22-year age group. In analyzing the association of risk factors among participants we observed that the highest number of participants was associated with a family history of DM which was 19.83%. Then 18.95%, 18.08%, 14.58%, 10.79%, 9.91%, 7.29%, 0.29%, and another 0.29% participants were associated with fast food, physical inactivity, rich food, acanthosis nigricans, overweight, obesity, HTN, and dyslipidemiaT2d, respectively. According to the p values, we did not find any significant correlation between T2D status with any risk factor in this study. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that family history of T2D, consumption of fast food, physical inactivity, consumption of rich food, acanthosis nigricans, and overweight are the most potential risk factors of diabetes mellitus for such participants. But we did not find any significant correlation among those risk factors. An oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) may ensure more specific results for such a study