oa Prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Qatari women aged between 18 to 40 from Qatar Biobank

Prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Qatari women aged between 18 to 40 from Qatar Biobank. 1Abeer Elshewehy, 1Soha Dargham, 2Eric Kilpatrick, 1Lina Ahmed, 1Youssra Dakroury, 1Stephen L Atkin 1Weill Cornell Medicine- Qatar, 2 Sidra Medical and Research Center Background: The Qatar STEPwise surveillance reported that the prevalence of type 2 diabetes amongst Qatar nationals was 16.7% in 2012. This high prevalence of diabetes will translate into significant morbidity and mortality through diabetes complications. Methods: Qatar Biobank extracted data from all women between 18 to 40 years (inclusive), 749 women in total. Women with (Group A: HbA1c ≥  6.5%; n = 12/708; 1.7%) and without (Group B; HbA1c ≤  5.6%; 608/708; 85.9%) type 2 diabetes were identified and their demographic details compared. Prediabetes was found in 88/708 women (HbA1c 5.6-6.4%; 11.7%). Biostatistical analysis was undertaken using SPSS. Results: Group A (HbA1c ≥  6.5%) had worse Framingham Risk Score (2%) than Group B (HbA1c ≤  5.6 %) ( <  1%). All results are reported as mean value Group A versus Group B. Conclusion: In this small young cohort, 1.7% of women had a WHO diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and 11.7% with prediabtes. Diabetes is perceived to be a disease of the middle aged and older individuals, but this study shows that there is a need for early screening and intervention for the prevention of type 2 diabetes in young Qatari women below the age of 40. Limitation of the study: Small number of participants and that latent type 1 diabetes could not be excluded that may have affected the overall prevalence, though this was expected to have a minimal impact. Acknowledgments: We are grateful to the Qatar Foundation and the Qatar Biobank for their support and assistance, and for Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Biomathematics Research Core at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar