Maja Drobnic Radobuljac, Martina Tomori, Tadej Battelino and Natasa Bratina
Aims/Hypothesis: This study assessed whether adolescents with type 1 diabetes engaged in risk behaviors as frequently as their healthy peers and whether engaging in risk behavior influenced their metabolic control.
Subjects and methods: Specially designed self-report questionnaires containing questions on demographic and family characteristics, cigarette smoking, alcohol and illegal drug use, eating and dieting habits, school truancy, running away from home, sexual activity, and engagement in sports were administered to a representative cohort of adolescents with type 1 diabetes and healthy controls.
Results: Questionnaires were returned by 126 patients (75 females, 51 males; mean age 16.9 ± 1.7) and 499 control subjects (307 females, 192 males; mean age 16.9 ± 1.2). The groups showed no differences in demographic and family characteristics. The females with type 1 diabetes compared to healthy controls reported lower prevalence of cigarette smoking (p<0.05), drinking liquors (p<0.001), being drunk (p<0.01), and higher prevalence of binge eating (p<0.01), maladaptive purging behavior (p<0.001) and frequently exercising (p<0.001). The males with type 1 diabetes compared to healthy controls reported lower prevalence of cigarette smoking (p<0.001), drinking beer (p<0.001), wine (p<0.05), and liquors (p<0.001), being drunk (p<0.001), using soft drugs (p<0.001), cutting class (p<0.05), running away from home (p<0.05) and being sexually active (p<0.01). Average glycosylated hemoglobin values of the patients who ever engaged in maladaptive purging (p=0.04) and used hard drugs (p=0.005) were higher compared to the ones who never had.
Conclusions: Type 1 diabetes was protective for most adolescent risk behaviors apart from disordered eating in females.