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The following is a summary of “Can self-rated health be useful to primary care physicians as a diagnostic indicator of metabolic dysregulations amongst patients with type 2 diabetes? A population-based study,” published in the May 2025 issue of BMC Primary Care by Umeh & Adaji. 

Most management of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) occurred in primary care, but research on psychosocial diagnostic indicators for detecting metabolic abnormalities in this population and endocrinology was lacking.  

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to examine the relationship between self-rated health and metabolic abnormalities in people with type 2 diabetes, adjusting for metabolic comorbidity.  

They identified 583 adults with T2DM from the 2019 Health Survey for England (HSE). Data on metabolic syndrome (MetS) included lipids (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol [HDL-C]), glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), blood pressure (systolic and diastolic), and anthropometric measures (BMI, waist-to-hip ratio). Bootstrapped hierarchical regression and structural equation modeling were applied to analyze the data.  

The results showed that adjusting for metabolic covariates reduced significant links between self-rated health and metabolic abnormalities HDL-C, HbA1c, regardless of MetS status. Gender-specific analysis found covariate-adjusted associations between self-rated health and men with HDL-C and women with HbA1c (P= 0.01), but these were not significant after Bonferroni correction (P> 0.004). Sensitivity analysis confirmed most results were stable across different missing data algorithms. Structural equation modeling revealed no indirect effects between self-rated health, metabolic abnormalities, and lifestyle factors.  

Investigators concluded that poor self-rated health could assist primary care physicians in identifying patients with T2DM and metabolic dysfunction but did not provide additional diagnostic value beyond clinical biomarkers. 

Source: bmcprimcare.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12875-024-02671-3