There are several papers which report the association of GI symptoms with diabetes. Epidemiological data regarding the association of GI symptoms with diabetes are, however, inconsistent, and the reported frequency of upper and lower GI symptoms varies among different ethnic groups/populations.
A research article to be published on April 14, 2010 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. A research article by Kim JH et al is the first study in Korea to examine the GI symptoms in type 2 diabetic patients and to analyze the diabetic factors associated with these symptoms. In this well designed case-control study with age- and sex-matched controls, the frequency of overall GI symptoms, upper GI symptoms and lower GI symptoms in the 190 patients with diabetes was 72%, 43% and 58%, respectively. The risk of only upper GI symptoms showed a statistically significant increase, with 1.68 times as many (with adjustments for age, gender, smoking and alcohol use) in the diabetic group than in the control group.
In addition, this study demonstrated that upper GI symptoms appeared to be independently linked to poor glycemic control as measured by HbA1c levels. Therefore, Kim JH et al cautiously suggest that chronic upper GI symptoms may be reversible with tight control of blood glucose level.
http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/full/v16/i14/1782.htm
Correspondence to: Hyung Seok Park, MD, Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Digestive Disease Center, Konkuk University School of Medicine, Konkuk University Medical Center, 4-12 Hwayang-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 143-729, South Korea. hspark@kuh.ac.kr
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World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H. pylori infection and provides a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2008 IF: 2.081. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of every month. WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the name of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.
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