Association of vitamin B12 and vitamin D in T2DM patients in north Indian population

Introduction

Diabetes mellitus, highly prevalent endocrine disorder and metformin is the most frequently recommended oral hypoglycemic agent (OHA).

Methods

We recruited 100 individuals who were taking OHA including metformin more than one year as cases and 40 healthy individuals as control. The patients were divided into three groups. The first group, Group I (n = 58) patients taking metformin, group II (n = 42) patients taking OHA other than metformin and group III (n = 40), taken as control group.

Results

In groups I, II, and III, a considerable number of patients experienced low levels of vitamin B12 i.e. 42 (72.41 %), 8 (19.05 %), and 14 (35 %) respectively. When comparing all groups, p-value was highly significant (p = 0.000). 35 (60.36 %), 13(30.95 %), and 15(37.5 %) patients had insufficient levels of vitamin D in groups I, II, III respectively. On comparing, p-value was highly significant (p = 0.007).

Conclusion

The study concluded that long-term metformin treatment causes insufficiency and deficiency of vitamin D and vitamin B12, respectively.