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Prevalence of diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia among antiretroviral naive patients co-infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV-1 compared to patients without co-infection.

Visnegarwala F, Chen L, Raghavan S, Tedaldi E

Department of Medicine, Section of Infectious Diseases, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77009, USA. fehmidav@bcm.tmc.edu

OBJECTIVE: An increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) has been associated with HCV in the non-HIV infected populations. To describe a similar association among HIV subjects, and explore the biological mechanisms. METHODS: In a cross-sectional analysis, we compared the prevalence of DM (using American Diabetes Association criteria) and insulin resistance (HOMA IR) and dyslipidemia among ARV naive patients with HIV and HIV/HCV infected patients enrolled in CPCRA FIRST (058) and the Metabolic Substudy (061). RESULTS: Among 1389 enrolled in the FIRST study and had HCV serology, the prevalence of diabetes was higher (5.9%) among HCV/HIV as compared to 3.3% among those with HIV alone (p=0.04). Among 417 enrolled in the metabolic substudy, 88 (21%) had HIV/HCV co-infection. As in the main study, the prevalence of DM was higher in HIV/HCV group (9 vs. 3%, p=0.03). The HIV/HCV infected were significantly older (43 vs. 37 years), non-white (83 vs. 70%), with a history of IDU (55 vs. 3%), had higher AST (61 vs. 39 U/l), ALT (55 vs. 43 U/l,) and lower cholesterol levels (3.97 vs. 4.25 mmol/l). By multivariate analysis among subjects <50 years, association between HCV and diabetes remained significant after adjusting for BMI, family history of diabetes (OR=3.7, 95% CI: 1.3-11.1, p=0.02). The insulin resistance (HOMA IR) was not different between the two groups, however, the prevalence of dyslipidemia was lower among HCV co-infected subjects. CONCLUSIONS: Subjects with HIV/HCV co-infection have a higher prevalence of diabetes and thus may need to be screened for it prior to initiation of anti-retroviral therapy, particularly if it is a PI based regimen.

Published 22 April 2005 in J Infect, 50(4): 331-7.
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