Abstract
BACKGROUND: A large percentage of diabetic patients also have other components of metabolic syndrome, which is a group of cardiovascular (CV) hazard factors related to both diabetes mellitus (DM) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). We do not know about the prevalence of CV risk factors in diabetic patients in Upper Egypt. We aimed to assess the CV risk factors in type 2 diabetic patients in Upper Egypt villages. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study that included 800 patients with type 2 DM. We classified the participants into three groups according to the hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels. We assessed the prevalence of other cardiovascular risk factors and their association with HbA1c levels through a detailed history, full clinical examination, and laboratory tests. RESULTS: We found that 75% of the participants were males, 25.5% elderly, 60.25% had hypertension, 60.75% had dyslipidemia, 33.25% were overweight or obese, 19.75% had a family history of coronary artery disease (CAD), 55.75% had established CVD, 42.5% were smokers, and only 12.25% were physically inactive. We found that 84% of the participants had ≥ two cardiovascular risk factors other than DM. HbA1c level was ≥ 7% in 77% of patients. After multivariate regression analysis, we found a significant association of higher systolic blood pressure (BP), more elevated diastolic BP, higher body mass index (BMI), increased waist circumference, old age, long duration of DM, and an increase in the number of clustered CV risk factors with a higher HbA1c level. At the same time, insulin therapy was significantly associated with a lower HbA1c level. CONCLUSION: All type 2 diabetic patients in Upper Egypt villages have other associated CV risk factors. The clustering of cardiovascular risk factors showed a significant association with higher HbA1c levels. These findings require the thought of associated CV risk factors in choosing medical treatments to optimize glycemic control and multifactorial intervention to improve CV risk.