Endocrine Abstracts

Medical students around the globe undergo serious amounts of stress related to adjustment to the rigors of medical curriculum, to change of roles, and other factors intrinsic to medical education. Research has shown that stress among medical students is associated with generally lower academic performance and lower job satisfaction once physicians. The goal of this study was to analyze the influence of healthy lifestyle practices not only on medical students’ health overall, but specifically on prevalence of endocrine pathology among medical students. 235 medical students from 11 countries participated in the study. Students were both those who studied in native languages to those countries and those enrolled in English language programs. Overall, over 20 cultural and ethnic back-grounds were represented. Medical students were asked to self-report their lifestyle practices (diet, exercise, alcohol and tobacco use, sleep quality, level of stress), occurrences of endocrine disorders, and academic performance in medical school. The following standardized peer-reviewed assessment instruments were used: Simple Lifestyle Indicator Questionnaire (SLIQ), Brief Insomnia Questionnaire (BIQ), questions regarding general overall academic performance, as well as performance on standardized tests (USMLE-like) during medical school. While prevalence of endocrine disorders generally is around 5–6%, in our sample 12% of medical students experienced some form of endocrine pathologies. Students seemed to have overall higher scores on the Exercise subscale of SLIQ than on the Diet subscale, which implied that these medical students’ diets are generally worse than their exercise habits. Medical students’ stress and sleep scores exhibited a negative, medium-strength correlation, suggesting that that lack of sleep and higher reported stress levels are associated. On average, students with endocrine pathology reported higher academic overall performance and higher licensing exams test scores. Medical students’ SLIQ and BIQ scores inversely correlated, which suggested that poorer lifestyle choices were associated with greater insomnia.