Abstract
Background: Diabetes mellitus is a widespread serious metabolic disease with both short and long-term complications. Leptin is a polypeptide hormone, exclusively secreted from adipose tissue and its level is directly proportional to the amount of body fat. There was growing evidence that leptin level has an impact on insulin sensitivity, so this study aims to demonstrate the relationship between total plasma leptin concentrations with glycated hemoglobin, fasting glucose levels, and body mass index in diabetic children. Methods: A case-control study was carried out in the Najran University Hospital and included 133 type 1 diabetic children and 71 healthy controls in the same age group. In this due, plasma fasting blood sugar (FBS), HbA1c, and leptin were analyzed. Results: Significantly higher values of leptin in the diabetic group were seen in our study. In addition, leptin showed nonsignificant positive correlations with FBG in diabetic children (r=0.110, p=0.359). While, it revealed positive significant correlations with HA1c and BMI (r=0.245, p=0.005 and r=0.393, p<0.001 respectively) and a non-significant positive correlation with age (r=0.64 and p=0.593). Conclusions: Our results displayed that leptin in children with type 1 diabetes was significantly greater than what was seen in the normoglycemic control group. Moreover, leptin was correlated with HbA1c and BMI and this may explain the insulin implication in the secretion of leptin.