Labanyabati Pattanaik1 , Madhusmita Acharya2 , Manoj Kumar Yadav3 , Prafulla Kumar Mishra4 , Madhab Nayak5
BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a widely prevalent lifestyle disease associated with high morbidity and mortality due to dead end complications like acute coronary syndrome, chronic kidney failure and acute stroke. Diabetes mellitus patients frequently develop problems of dyselectrolytemia which is common among hospitalised patients with decompensated diabetes. But there is little information on the prevalence of electrolyte disturbances among diabetes patients. Our aim is to find out the pattern of dyselectrolytemia among type 2 diabetes patients and to know if there is any association of blood glucose level with dyselectrolytemia. METHODS An analytical cross-sectional study was done among type 2 diabetes patients admitted in the department of medicine. Fasting blood glucose (FBG), glycosylated haemoglobin level (HbA1c), blood sodium (Na+), potassium (K+) and calcium (Ca2+) were analysed. Occurrence of dyselectrolytemia was compared between patients of very much controlled versus uncontrolled blood glucose levels. RESULTS Out of 199 patients included in the study, 112 (56 %) had uncontrolled diabetes mellitus (DM) with HbA1c level > / = 7.0 %. Occurrence of hyponatremia, hypokalaemia, hyperkalaemia, hypocalcaemia and hypercalcemia were 35 %, 13 %, 7 %, 16 % and 2 % respectively. In diabetes patients, hyponatremia was seen more commonly in patients with uncontrolled DM than those with very much controlled blood glucose (52.67 % versus 12.64 %, p < 0.001). The extent of patients with hypokalaemia or hyperkalaemia didn't vary between the two groups. Patients on insulin treatment were more likely to have hyponatremia than noninsulin patients (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Type 2 DM patients specifically those who have uncontrolled diabetes mellitus have an increased chance to develop dyselectrolytemia. The most well-known electrolyte disturbances seen were hyponatremia followed by hypocalcaemia in our study and they were generally predominant among patients with uncontrolled DM
