Background: Studies have shown that poorly controlled diabetes mellitus result to significantly deranged lipid profile and atherogenic indexes in diabetic patients, thus they are at increased risk of dyslipidaemias. With respect to age and stages of a diabetic woman’s life, there is much increased risk. Aim: The study was aimed to evaluate the lipid and glycated haemoglobin levels of pre- and post-menopausal women suffering from type 2 diabetes mellitus. Materials and Methods: A total of 148 known type 2 diabetic women (60 pre-menopausal and 88 post- menopausal women) and 90 healthy non-diabetic women (40 pre-menopausal and 50 post-menopausal women) were included in the study. HBA1c, total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) and very low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (VLDL-C) were determined using standard methods.Findings: This study showed that the HDL-C level was significantly lower (p<0.05) in both groups of diabetic women compared to their respective controls. In pre-menopausal diabetic women, with the exception of LDL-C, other lipid parameters and ratios (TC/HDL-C and TG/HDL-C) show significantly increased mean results (p<0.05) compared with that of the control. Increased TG, VLDL-C, and atherogenic indexes (TC/HDL-C and TG/HDL-C ratios), and reduced HDL-C levels (p<0.05) were the significant lipid alterations found in post-menopausal diabetic women compared to their age-matched controls. Furthermore, the study revealed that TC and HDL-C increased significantly (p<0.05) in post–menopausal diabetic women when compared with pre–menopausal diabetic women. Conversely, VLDL-C and TG levels together with the lipid ratios were found to decrease significantly (p<0.05) in post-menopausal diabetic women when compared with pre-menopausal diabetic women. The study also revealed that in pre-menopausal diabetic subjects HbA1c at p<0.01 correlated with some of the lipid parameters and the atherogenic indexes. Nonetheless, in the post-menopausal diabetic subjects no significant relationships (p>0.05) between HbA1c and all the lipid parameters and ratios were observed.
Conclusion: This finding suggests that early detection and modification of poor glycaemic control and the accompanying specific lipid abnormalities may improve the health of the diabetic subjects.
Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus, Lipid profile, glycated haemoglobin, postmenopausal, premenopausal
