The final height of 72 patients with DM1 followed in the Endocrine Service at Hospital das Clínicas of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais was evaluated. DM1 began before puberty was completed. Mean age was 21.2±3.2 years and they had 11.9±5.7 years of disease. Mean final height of the group was 159.5±8.1cm (z score= -1.23±1.05), 156.7± 6.0cm for female (n= 53) and 167.5±8.2cm for male (n= 19). The z scores were -1.16±0.99 for female and -1.42±1.25 for male. The comparison of patients final height curve with that from the NCHS shows that the stature of 88.9% of diabetics was abnormally below the mean reference. A reduction of 0.5 SD was observed in final height (-1.08±1.23) in relation to height at the year of diagnosis (-0.53±0.77) in a subset of 23 patients (p= 0.01). A group with poor metabolic control (n= 15; glycosylated hemoglobin of 13.1±1.0%) showed impaired final height results (z score= -1.83±0.78 vs. -0.83±1.07; p= 0.02) when compared to the better-controlled group (n= 7; glycosylated hemoglobin = 10±0.83%). We conclude that our results support the notion that DM1 has a detrimental effect on the final stature of these patients, which is also related to the status of metabolic control.
Diabetes mellitus; Stature; Blood glucose; Glycosylated hemoglobin
