Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The male preponderance among 15–30 yrs old patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) was repeatedly described. All-age gender distribution assessment was not done yet because of the difficulties in the type of DM recognition in insulin-treated (IT) patients diagnosed after 30 yrs of age. The possibility of such assessment has arisen from the use of population-based DM registers by patients stratification depending of their disease history.

Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of Ukrainian DM nation-wide register (105,364 IT patients ≥30 yrs of age) was conducted. Patients were stratified into subgroups according to the age, when DM was diagnosed: “T1DM” ≤30 yrs, intermediate group (“IG”) 31–39 yrs, and “T2DM” ≥40 yrs at diagnosis. Gender distribution was assessed in each group and adjusted according to the 2001 Ukraine national census. The data sets were analyzed using a 2-way chi-square analysis. Percentage data were arcsine transformed.

Results: The percentage of patients who had insulin-free period <2 yrs was decreased and proportion of females as well as female/male RR were increased with increasing of age at the time of DM diagnosis (see table).

Conclusions: The male preponderance in adult IT patients which are rather T1DM and female ones which are rather T2DM was revealed in Ukrainian diabetic population. Gender distribution is related to patient age at DM diagnosis. Further investigation could clarify if it depends upon the sex hormones dynamics in ontogenesis.