Implications of Iron Deficiency/Anemia on the Classification of Diabetes Using HbA1c

Citation

Attard, Samantha M.; Herring, Amy H.; Wang, Huiling; Howard, Annie Green; Thompson, Amanda L.; Adair, Linda S.; Mayer-Davis, Elizabeth J.; & Gordon-Larsen, Penny (2015). Implications of Iron Deficiency/Anemia on the Classification of Diabetes Using HbA1c. Nutrition & Diabetes, 5(6), e166. PMCID: PMC4491857

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Nonglycemic factors like iron deficiency (ID) or anemia may interfere with classification of diabetes and prediabetes using hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). However, few population-based studies of diabetes in areas with endemic ID/anemia have been conducted. We aimed to determine how mutually exclusive categories of ID alone, anemia alone and iron-deficiency anemia (IDA) were each associated with prediabetes and diabetes prevalence using fasting blood glucose (FBG) versus HbA1c in a population-based study of adults with endemic ID/anemia.
Subjects/Methods: We used data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, a longitudinal, population-based study across 228 communities within nine provinces of China. This analysis included 7308 adults seen in the 2009 survey aged 18–75 years. We used descriptive and covariate-adjusted models to examine relative risk of prediabetes and diabetes using FBG alone, HbA1c alone, HbA1c and FBG, or neither (normoglycemia) by anemia alone, ID alone, IDA or normal iron/hemoglobin.
Results: Approximately 65% of individuals with diabetes in our sample were concordantly classified with diabetes using both FBG and HbA1c, while 35% had a discordant diabetes classification: they were classified using either FBG or HbA1c, but not both. Fewer participants with ID alone versus normal iron/hemoglobin were classified with diabetes using HbA1c only. From covariate-adjusted, multinomial regression analyses, the adjusted prevalence of prediabetes using HbA1c only was 22% for men with anemia alone, but 13% for men with normal iron/hemoglobin. In contrast, the predicted prevalence of prediabetes using HbA1c only was 8% for women with ID alone, compared with 13% for women with normal iron/hemoglobin.
Conclusions: These findings suggest potential misclassification of diabetes using HbA1c in areas of endemic ID/anemia. Estimating diabetes prevalence using HbA1c may result in under-diagnosis in women with ID and over-diagnosis in men with anemia.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nutd.2015.16

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

2015

Journal Title

Nutrition & Diabetes

Author(s)

Attard, Samantha M.
Herring, Amy H.
Wang, Huiling
Howard, Annie Green
Thompson, Amanda L.
Adair, Linda S.
Mayer-Davis, Elizabeth J.
Gordon-Larsen, Penny

PMCID

PMC4491857

ORCiD

Gordon-Larsen - 0000-0001-5322-4188