Exploring the Association between Elevated Liver Enzymes and Diabetes in the PERSIAN Guilan Cohort Study

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is highly consequential to global health among chronic diseases. Due to a limited researches that have examined relationships between liver enzymes and DM, this study aimed to investigate the link between elevated liver enzymes and diabetes among Prospective Epidemiological Research Studies in Iran (PERSIAN) Guilan cohort study (PGCS) population. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 10519 individuals. The demographic and clinical information of the participants was recorded. The changes in alanine aminotransferases (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferases (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and γ-glutamyltransferase (GGT) were evaluated. IBM SPSS Version 21 was used to analyze the data, with a significance level < 0.05. Results: The frequency of diabetes was 24.1% and was more prevalent in women than men (27.4% vs. 20.2%, p< 0.001). After removing all confederates, patients with elevated ALT, AST, GGT, and ALP levels were 1.27, 1.27, 1.52, and 1.46 times more likely to have diabetes, respectively. The likelihood of developing diabetes rose in correlation with the number of elevated liver enzymes, up to almost 1.77-fold among subjects with three or four increased liver enzymes. Conclusion: Patients diagnosed with diabetes exhibited significantly increased levels of liver enzymes compared to those without diabetes. Also, impairment of three or four liver enzymes demonstrated a positive correlation with an elevated likelihood of DM. This indicates the importance of considering the liver status in the management of the DM population.