Abstract
Background Insulin resistance has a significant relationship with a lot of chronic diseases. This is an alarm for the future high prevalence of many chronic diseases. Due to the lack of sufficient data surrounding the clinical manifestations of insulin resistance among the Saudi population, the study aims to fill this gap by assessing the prevalence of dermatological, cognitive, daytime sleep, and craving changes in the Saudi population, which are markers of insulin resistance. Methods A cross-sectional study was carried out to study the prevalence of clinical manifestations known to be associated with insulin resistance with a convenient nonprobability sample among 272 female medical students at the Ibn Sina National College for Medical Studies, a private medical college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Each participant underwent an in-person interview where height, weight, and waist circumference were measured and BMI calculated. The in-person interview was performed using a series of questionnaires that assessed demographic data and clinical manifestations related to insulin resistance. Data was collected and grouped using Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, USA). Statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 22 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). For prevalence calculations, percentages were used. The Chi-square test was used to analyze qualitative variables. The level of significance adopted was p < 0.05. Results The research revealed that acanthosis nigricans, skin tags, and alopecia areata were statistically significant in relation to waist circumference as an indicator of insulin resistance. Conversely, of all the dermatological manifestations, acne, psoriasis, hidradenitis suppurativa, hirsutism, and vitiligo were not associated with waist circumference. Also, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) was statistically significant. Regards cognitive changes, carbohydrate craving, and day sleep were all proportionally higher in the high waist circumference category but were not found to be significantly significant in relation to waist circumference. Conclusion The findings of the study confirm the association of dermatological and endocrine features such as acanthosis nigricans, skin tags, alopecia areata, and PCOS with waist circumference as an indicator of insulin resistance. The high prevalence of increased waist circumference in the study population is also in line with international data concerning the increasing incidence of insulin resistance and, consequently, diabetes mellitus will be seen among younger age groups.