Hemoglobin A1c screening and potential eating disorders prevalance in university students

Obesity and diabetes are the most important public health issues in Turkey. The pre-adult periods plays an important role on the basis of this problems. Therefore, it is important to determine hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels in the blood and potential eating disorders prevalance in children and youth. This study has been carried out to determine the relationship between HbA1c levels in the blood with body analyze results and eating attitudes of the university students. This study is an analytical cross-sectional study. It was conducted on 428 students who are studying at Gaziantep University, during May-July 2013. HbA1c levels were measured with Nycocard-Reader II device in the finger tip blood. The prevalance of potential eating disorders has been identified with the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-40). Body analyzes were conducted with Tanita BF-350 device. The mean age of the students was 21.87±2.02 years, 50.5% were male, 49.5% were female. 72.4 % of the students skip meals, 8.4% were dieting. 72.0% of the students have normal body mass index (BMI) range (?18.5-<25.0). Average body height was 171.0±8.9cm, average body weight was 65.9±13.1kg. Average BMI values showed significant difference in male (23.5±3.3) and female (21.3±2.8), also average body fat ratio showed significant difference in male (14.8±5.5%) and female (23.0±6.8%) (p<0.001). Average HbA1c levels showed similarity in male (5.26±0.55%) and female (5.20±0.47%) (p=0.189). 6.8% of students' HbA1c level was ?6.0%. 9.1% of students EAT score was ?30. There was low but asignificant correlation between EAT scores and HbA1c levels (r=0.096; p=0.047). The low but positively asignificant correlation between BMI and HbA1c levels (r=0.226; p=0.001). In this study, 6.8% of students were at risk of developing diabetes. Prevalance of potential eating disorder was 9.1%. As it is voluable for early diagnosis, it can be suggested that university health services can perform this follow-up. Key Words: University Students, HbA1c, Screening, Eating Attitudes Test