Abstract

STUDY THE POSSIBLE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN TOXOPLASMOSIS AND DIABETES MELLITUS IN IRAQ

Abdul-Lateef Molan* and Massar H. Ismail

ABSTRACT

Toxoplasma gondii is an important opportunistic parasite in immunocompromised people. Globally, diabetes mellitus is one of the most challenging public health burdens of the 21st century. Both toxoplasmosis and diabetes are very common in Iraq and other countries. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the seroprevalence of the anti-Toxoplasma gondii IgG and IgM antibodies in the blood of diabetic individuals attended the Diabetes Centers in Diyala and Baghdad Provinces during 2016 together with a group of non-diabetic individuals to serve as a control group. Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) was used to detect anti- T. gondii IgG and IgM antibodies in the sera of 300 and 69 patients with type 2 (T2DM) and type 1 (T1DM) diabetes, respectively together with 150 non-diabetic apparently healthy controls. The results showed that 66.6% of the diabetic patients were found seropositive for IgG while 33.4% of the apparently healthy individuals (control group) were found seropositive for the same antibody and the difference between the two groups was highly significant (P= 0.009). Among the diabetic individuals, 52 cases (75.3%) of the T1DM were seropositive for the IgG antibody while 248 cases (65.0%) of the T2DM were found seropositive for IgG antibody but the difference between the two groups was not significant (P< 0.05). None of the diabetic individuals and the apparently healthy controls showed seopositivity for T. gondii IgM antibodies. As long as the diabetes lowers the immune response, it may pave the way to toxoplasmosis so our hypothesis is that toxoplasmosis paves the way for diabetes and diabetes paves the way for toxoplasmosis but this depends on which one establishes first.

Keywords: Toxoplasma gondii, toxoplasmosis; Diabetes Mellitus Types 1 and 2.