The relationships between hemoglobin and diabetogenic factors in young Chinese adults

Objective: Four diabetogenesis factors (DF) are recognized as the pathophysiology for diabetes; increased insulin resistance (IR); decreased glucose effectiveness (GE); first- and second-phase insulin secretion (FPIS and SPIS). The relationships between hemoglobin (Hb), IR and FPIS are well investigated. However, little is known about the associations between Hb and the other two DFs. Nowadays, the incidence of type 2 diabetes has increased dramatically in young adults in Taiwan. A group of young adults are enrolled for investigating relationships between Hb and the DFs. Design: Cross-sectional study Setting: Health check-up centers and hospitals Subjects: 21,112 and 20,687 healthy males and females (18-27 years old) were recruited. Main outcome measures: The four DFs were measured by the equations published in our previous studies. Participants were divided into quartiles by Hb levels, and ANOVA was used to compare the differences of DFs in these four groups. Then simple correlation was applied to evaluate the correlation between Hb and the DFs. Results: In both genders, IR, FPIS and SPIS had negative trends from the lower to the higher Hb quartiles, but GE had a positive one. Simple correlation showed negative relationships between Hb and FPIS, SPIS and IR, similarly, it was positive for GE. Besides, GE is most closely related to Hb, followed by IR, SPIS and FPIS. Conclusions: Our study showed that in young Chinese adults, all the DFs except GE were negatively correlated with Hb. Among these correlations, GE had the highest r value, followed by IR, SPIS and FPIS.