The Effect of Diabetes and Disease Duration on Disc Degeneration and ‎Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue Thickness

In this study, we aimed to determine whether the presence and duration of diabetes mellitus (DM) is ‎associated with changes in intervertebral disc degeneration, epiphyseal plaque degeneration, and ‎subcutaneous fat tissue thickness. Diabetic patients and non-diabetic participants (control group) who applied to the ‎internal medicine outpatient clinic between 2020-2022 and had lumbar spine magnetic resonance imaging ‎due to low back and/or leg pain were included the study. Disc degeneration, epiphyseal plaque ‎degeneration, and subcutaneous fat tissue thickness parameters of DM patients and control group were ‎reviewed retrospectively, and the results were statistically evaluated. There were 80 DM patients in the ‎patient group, 25 (31.3%) of these patients were male and 55 (68.8%) were female. There was a total of ‎‎121 participants in the control group, of which 39 (32.2%) were male and 82 (67.8%) were female. The ‎mean age of the patient group was 57.85±10.76 years, while the mean age of the control group was ‎‎54.23±13.09 years. There was no significant difference between the duration of DM and disc degeneration, ‎epiphyseal plaque degeneration, and subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness. However, there was a ‎significant difference between the control group and the DM patient group in terms of disc degeneration and ‎epiphyseal plaque degeneration (p=0.003 and p=0.017, respectively). This study reveals that patients with ‎diabetes have an increased susceptibility to disc degeneration and epiphyseal plaque degeneration, ‎regardless of disease duration. Control and treatment of diabetic disease will make an important contribution ‎to the prevention of secondary complications‎.