Glucose intolerance in pulmonary tuberculosis.

Abstract

Although the increased incidence of tuberculosis in persons with diabetes mellitus has been well documented, there is scant information on the incidence of diabetes in patients with tuberculosis. Accordingly, every consecutive patient admitted to the tuberculosis ward during a 5.5-year period had a blood glucose determination 2 hours after 100 g of glucose orally. In 41 per cent of the 256 patients, the blood glucose concentrations at 2 hours were in a diabetic range for the age of the patients. The greater incidence of glucose intolerance in a tuberculous population probably reflects an increased association between the 2 diseases. The older age of the group of patients with tuberculosis represents the successes of chemotherapy and is also the age at which maturity-onset diabetes occurs. Thus viewed, diabetes might well be a factor that precipitates endogenous reactivation of tuberculosis.