Endocrine Abstracts

What factors contribute to the development and progression of insulin resistance in diabetes is not fully understood. The aim was to evaluate the intake of carbohydrates, vegetables and meat intake according to sex, age, BMI, duration of diabetes, diabetes complications and HOMA -IR scores in the groups with different IR.

Methods: This was a case-control study. Total of 122 subjects were enrolled. Subjects matched by age and sex were divided into two groups. Subjects with high insulin doses (>1–2 IU/kg/day) and poor diabetes control (HbA1c > 9%) were referred to the case group (60 participants). Subjects with low insulin requirement (<1 IU/kg/day) and HbA1c < 8 % were referred to control group. Usual dietary intake was assessed by using semiquantitative FFQ (unique, created by study author). Participants were asked to report their frequency of consumption of a given serving of each food item during the previous month on a daily basis.

Results: A significantly higher proportion of control group subjects consumed slow-release carbohydrates (≥ 2 times per week) and had a lower HOMA-IR < 10 (70.6%), compared with the case group subjects, who consumed more fast-acting carbs and had a high HOMA-IR ≥ 10 (29.4%) (P=0.041). Younger than 60 years case group participants consumed vegetables less frequently than control subjects (61.9% in the case group vs 100% in the control group, P = 0.043). Case group women (82.1%, P=0.033), subjects over 60 years (85.3%, P=0.020) and subjects with diabetes duration >10 years (84.8%, P=0.017) consumed red meat more often than 1 time per week. Irrespective of BMI, subjects in the control group were statistically significantly more likely to report no or infrequent intake of the red meat (16.1% vs. 3.6% in the case group, P=0.006). A higher proportion of subjects who rarely ate red meat (less than 1 time a week) had no diabetes complications (33.3%) compared to 8.6% of subjects who rarely ate red meat and had diabetes complications (P=0.051).

Conclusions: Subjects who frequently consumed slow carbohydrates were more likely to have lower HOMA-IR. Vegetables were less frequently consumed by case group subjects, younger than 60 years. Red meat was consumed more frequently by female, subjects over 60 years, obese and long diabetes duration subjects. The rate of chronic diabetes complications was lower in subjects who consumed red meat less than 1 time a week.