Nutritional Status of Children and Adolescents with Type1 Diabetes Mellitus in Basra

Growth problems represent an important complication in children and adolescent with Type1 diabetes mellitus and poor metabolic control seems to impact their growth velocity. Aim: to assess the nutritional status in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus, in relation to selected patients variables. Methods: a case-control study has been carried out to assess the nutritional status of sixty-one patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus; and eighty-two age and sex matched healthy children as control group; their ages ranged from 3-14 year, from the 1 of October 2016 till 15th of March 2017. Results: The mean age of diabetic patients was (10.3±3.02) years; (60.66%) belong to large family size with low education. Diabetic patients significantly belong to families with poor financial support and income in (45.9%) compared to the control group (26.8%) (p value 0.02), as well as those undernourished diabetic children significantly belongs to families with poor income than those with normal nutritional status (75%, 38%) respectively. Body mass index was significantly below 5 percentile in diabetic patients than the controls (19.68 %, 2.4 %) respectively; P value 0.001. History of inadequate dietary intake was recorded in 66.67% of patients; significantly related to undernutrition in diabetics patients than controls (P value 0.002). Undernutrition in diabetic children significantly associated with poor glycemic control with significantly high level of HbA1c (13.9±9.57) than those without undernutrition (10.6±5.28) respectively. Conclusion: Frequent evaluation of diabetic children is required to overcome the problem of undernutrition in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus.