Highlights

• Adults with diabetes mellitus have a greater risk of fracture, venous thromboembolism, and sepsis than those without diabetes; the use of corticosteroids, even for short durations, increases this risk.
• Vitamin D mitigated the risk of fracture in patients with diabetes who used corticosteroids, and statins decreased the likelihood of hospitalization for sepsis in corticosteroid users with diabetes.
• Corticosteroids should be used with caution in patients with diabetes and mitigating factors should be considered.

Highlights

• Serum fetuin-B concentrations are positively correlated with intrahepatic triglyceride content.
• Fetuin-B was independently associated with an increased risk of insulin resistance in humans.
• The role of fetuin-B links liver fat accumulation to insulin resistance in humans.

Highlights

• Higher urinary bisphenol A (BPA) concentrations were positively and independently associated with a higher risk of incident central obesity in Chinese adults.
• A significant association has been reported between the prevalence of central obesity and urinary BPA in a Chinese population. The present study adds novel evidence of a prospective association between urinary BPA and risk of central obesity.

Highlights

• From childhood to adulthood, an increase in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) imposes a differentially greater risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) for females versus males.
• Conversely, an increase in systolic blood pressure over the life course greatly increases males’ risk of T2DM, but has no effect in females.

Highlights

• The present study found that HbA1c was positively associated with age, whereas fetal hemoglobin (HbF) was negatively associated with age.
• Male subjects had higher HbA1c levels in the 20–59 years age group and lower HbA1c levels in the 60–79 years age group compared with females.
• Sex and age should be considered in the clinical interpretation of HbA1c values.

Highlights

• This large study of postmenopausal women with comprehensive assessment of diet and serum sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) levels indicated that low glycemic load (GL) or glycemic index (GI) and low sugar, but high dietary fiber, were associated with elevated levels of circulating SHBG.
• The findings support the notion that SHBG may be affected by dietary GL, GI, sugar, and fiber, and may also be an important mediator by which various dietary carbohydrates influence the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hormone-dependent cancers.

Highlights

• Higher concentrations of triglycerides and lower concentrations of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in early and mid-pregnancy are significantly related to a greater risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).
• Total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations during pregnancy were not associated with risk of GDM.
• This study is based on longitudinal assessments of plasma lipid concentrations across pregnancy in a multiracial/multi-ethnic pregnancy cohort, which is uniquely suited to address temporal associations of plasma lipids in early and mid-pregnancy with the development of subsequent GDM.

Highlights

• Among patients with incident ischemic stroke in the Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Stroke Study, younger women and women with coronary artery disease (CAD) were more likely to have diabetes, whereas these associations were not significant for men.
• Our findings suggest that there is a sex-specific association between younger age and incident strokes in women with diabetes. Consequently, women with diabetes may benefit from more aggressive risk factor control.

Highlights

• In investigating the role of genetic variations in sex hormone pathways and the risk of diabetes, this study found a significant signal in the progesterone receptor (PGR) gene in Hispanic American women. However, this finding was not replicated in other populations.
• The data suggest the need for further studies, especially sex-specific analyses, to confirm the findings of the present study and clarify the role of sex hormone pathways in type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Highlights

• Adipocyte fatty acid-binding protein (A-FABP) levels are increased in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD).
• Higher A-FABP levels are associated with PAD only in female, and male, patients with T2DM.
• Higher A-FABP levels in female T2DM patients tend to explain the elimination of the “female advantage” regarding the risk of cardiovascular disease with diabetes.

Highlights

• This study elucidates the potential roles of sex hormones in biological aging, and identified that total and free testosterone levels were inversely associated with telomere length in Asian/Pacific Islander women but not in Black and Hispanic women.
• The findings of the present study suggest that Asian/Pacific Islander women may be susceptible to the potential detrimental effects of high testosterone levels on biologic aging.

Highlights

• In postmenopausal women, higher levels of pessimism were related to worse metabolic function.
• For each additional point on the pessimism scale, a woman's fasting insulin level was 1.2% higher, holding other health-related factors constant, while scoring 1 SD higher was associated with almost 3% higher insulin levels.
• Future research should address whether interventions to modify pessimistic attitudes could potentially reduce a woman's risk of diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease.

Highlights

• Vitamin D insufficiency is common in pregnant women, and has been associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). However, the effect of vitamin D intake, either from diet or supplements, on the development of GDM remains unknown.
• In a large prospective cohort study, we found that prepregnancy supplemental vitamin D intake was significantly and inversely associated with risk of GDM.
• These results indicate potential benefits of increasing vitamin D intake from supplements in the prevention of GDM.

Highlights

• Active smoking was associated with an increased risk of prevalent poor glycemic control in middle-aged or elderly diabetic adults.
• Men who quit smoking for <10 years remained at increased risk for prevalent poor glycemic control compared with never smokers, and the risk leveled off after 10 years of smoking cessation.
• Smoking cessation was associated with improvement in glycemic control compared with current smoking.

Highlights

• Higher intake of dietary total branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), leucine and valine in particular, may increase the incidence of insulin resistance by more than 60% in adults and play an important role in the development of diabetes.
• No significant association of was found between the intake of total BCAAs or isoleucine, leucine, and valine individually and the risk of hyperinsulinemia, β-cell dysfunction, or insulin insensitivity in adults.

Highlights

• The sensitivity of HbA1c as a screening test for diabetes in this study was significantly higher than that in other published studies in the literature.
• One reason that could explain the increased sensitivity of HbA1c in this study could be the use of repeat testing to confirm the diagnosis of diabetes.

Highlights

• This study demonstrates that genes encoding glutathione S-transferases M1, T1, and P1 are important determinants of susceptibility to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in Russians.
• This study is the first to show a joint contribution of these genes to the development of the disease, but the effects of these genes on disease risk are gender specific.
• A synergy between the effects of glutathione S-transferase gene polymorphisms and cigarette smoking may increase the risk of T2DM.