Pattern of electrolyte imbalance in Type 2 diabetes patients: Experience from a tertiary care hospital

Pattern of electrolyte imbalance in type 2 diabetes patients

  • Rashid Naseem Khan
  • Farhana Saba National hospital and medical center
  • Syedhh Fatima Kausar
  • Mohammad Hassan Siddique
Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, Electrolyte imbalance, Hyperglycemia, Fasting blood glucose

Abstract

Objective: To determine frequency of electrolyte imbalance including sodium, chloride, potassium and magnesium levels present in patients with uncontrolled diabetes at a tertiary care hospital in Karachi.

Methods: This was a descriptive cross sectional study conducted at Medicine Department, Darul Sehat Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan from March 2017 to October 2017. A total of one hundred and eighty one admitted and OPD patients with uncontrolled diabetes (HbA1c more than 7%) were included and their demographics, comorbidities, microvascular complications, drug history, fasting and random blood glucose and serum electrolyte levels were recorded.

Results: In uncontrolled diabetes mellitus, decrease in serum sodium and chloride levels were observed to be statistically highly significant (p-value less than or equal to 0.05) while that of potassium and magnesium showed insignificant alterations. Sodium level was also observed to decline with increasing pattern of urine for microalbumin.

Conclusion: Electrolyte imbalance is markedly present in patients with uncontrolled blood sugars therefore serum electrolytes should be routinely measured in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Serum fasting blood glucose can be used as a predictor for electrolytes.

doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.3.844

How to cite this:
Khan RN, Saba F, Kausar SF, Siddiqui MH. Pattern of electrolyte imbalance in Type 2 diabetes patients: Experience from a tertiary care hospital. Pak J Med Sci. 2019;35(3):797-801. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.3.844

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published
2019-05-22
How to Cite
Khan, R. N., Saba, F., Kausar, S. F., & Siddique, M. H. (2019). Pattern of electrolyte imbalance in Type 2 diabetes patients: Experience from a tertiary care hospital: Pattern of electrolyte imbalance in type 2 diabetes patients. Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, 35(3). https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.3.844
Section
Original Articles