Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a risk factor for type 2 diabetes: a nationwide population-based study.

BACKGROUND

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) is a common medical disorder and a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. We investigated whether chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was the risk factor for type 2 diabetes in an Asian population.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

From Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database, we collected data from 16,088 patients, including 8044 COPD patients and 8044 age- and gender- matched control subjects. Cox proportional hazard regression was performed to evaluate independent risk factors for type 2 diabetes in all patients and identify risk factors in patients with COPD.

RESULTS

During the 5.5-year follow-up, patients with COPD were found to have a significantly higher rate of incident type 2 diabetes than the control group (P < 0.001). COPD was significantly associated with type 2 diabetes hazard ratio (HR : 1.41, 1.23-1.63, P < 0.001) after adjusting sex, age, residential area, insurance premium, steroid use, hypertriglycemia, hypertension, coronary artery disease (CAD) and cerebrovascular disease. Cox regression analysis showed that hypertension (HR : 1.55, 1.33-1.80, P < 0.001) and hypertriglycemia (HR : 1.48, 1.15-1.90, P = 0.002) were important risk factors for type 2 diabetes in patients with COPD.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients with COPD have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes compared with control subjects after adjusting for confounding factors such as sex, age, residential area, insurance premium, steroid use, hypertriglycemia, hypertension, CAD and cerebrovascular disease. Continuous surveillance of signals of dysglycemia may be incorporated into care programmes for patients with COPD.