The Correlation between The Length of The Small Intestine and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Background: With an average length of 22 feet (7m), or three-and-a-half times the body length, the small intestine is thelongest segment of the digestive tract.Aim: To determine the relationship between small intestine lengths and type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) after controllingfor glycemic control, age, sex, and BMI.Patients and Methods: A total of 268 patients (167 men and 101 women) who came to Kasr Alainy Hospital with arecommendation for open abdominal exploration were included in this prospective cross-sectional research.Results: Total small bowel length was significantly longer among nondiabetic group than diabetic group (413±53cmin nondiabetics vs. 383±30cm in the diabetics) with P value 0.0001. BMI, random blood sugar (RBS), and glycatedhemoglobin were significantly higher among the diabetic group with P values 0.0001, 0.0001, and 0.0001, respectively.Type 2 DM can independently predict shorter small bowel length with P value 0.011, odds ratio 10.7(95% confidenceinterval: 1.7–67.6) after adjustment for age, sex, and BMI. RBS can independently predict shorter small bowel length withP value 0.006, odds ratio 0.96(0.94–0.99).Conclusion: Type 2 DM is associated with shorter small bowel, poor glycemic control is associated with shorter smallbowel. Total length of small bowel was significantly shorter in patients with higher RBS more than 200mg/dl and higherglycated hemoglobin more than 6.5%. Type 2 DM can independently predict shorter small bowel length. Higher RBS canindependently predict shorter small bowel length.