STDs can increase your risk of DIABETES

Sexually transmitted diseases – including chlamydia – increase your risk of diabetes by 82 per cent, scientists have revealed.

Furthermore, intestinal infections also raise the risk of diabetes by 88 per cent, according to a new study.

A team of scientists from University of California Los Angeles uncovered previously unknown risk factors for diabetes.

They also developed a new screening algorithm to ensure that those who are at risk for the disease actually get tested.

Study co-author Dr Mark Cohen, a professor at UCLA, said: ‘There's so much more information available in the medical record that could be used to determine whether a patient needs to be screened, and this information isn't currently being used.’

The team of researchers examined thousands of electronic health records to find a more accurate – and less expensive way – to identify people with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes.

They sorted through electronic records for 9,948 people in all 50 states.

The patients themselves weren’t identifiable, but their records included vital signs, prescription medications and reported ailments.

The team used half of the records to develop an algorithm that allowed them to predict the likelihood of diabetes.

They then tested the pre-screening tool on the other hand.

The scientists determined that having any diagnosis of sexual and gender identity disorders increased the risk by nearly 130 per cent – essentially the same as high blood pressure.

They also found that having a history of viral infections and chlamydia, as well as intestinal infections, having nearly as high of a diabetes risk factor as high body mass index.

Additionally, a history of chicken pox, shingles and other viral infections increased the risk of diabetes as much as high cholesterol.

In contrast, the scientists were also able to determine certain factors that lowered the risk of diabetes.

They found that having a history of migraines reduces a person’s risk as much as being 29 years younger.

Furthermore, people who take anti-anxiety and anti-seizure medications also have a lower risk.

Dr Cohen said: ‘The overall message is that ordinary record keeping that doctors do is a very, very rich source of information.

‘If you use a computerized approach to studying patterns in that data, you can greatly improve diagnosis and medical care.’

Further research is needed to determine the medical reasons that certain factors increase or decrease the risk of diabetes.

Medical providers have traditionally figured out who to screen for diabetes based on factors, such as blood pressure, BMI, age, gender and smoking status.

However, the pre-screening tool based on the entirety of a person’s health records was found to be 2.5 per cent more efficient at identifying people at risk of diabetes.

The tool is also 14 per cent better at identifying who doesn’t have the disease.

The scientists concluded that if the method were to be used nationally, it could identify 400,000 people who haven’t yet been diagnosed with the disease.

Lead study author Dr Ariana Anderson said: ‘Given that one in four people with diabetes don't know they have the disease, it's very important to be able to say, “This person has all these other diagnoses, so we're a little bit more confident that she is likely to have diabetes".

‘We need to be sure to give her the formal laboratory test, even if she's asymptomatic.’

The study is published in the Journal of Biomedical Informatics.