Background: Type 2 diabetes is one of the most prevalent and costly chronic diseases in Algeria. A multifactorial etiology was identified with important association of environmental and genetic risk factors. Objectives:The aim of this study was to determine the association of risk factors with type 2 diabetes, among adult subjects recruited from hospital in West region of Algeria, Maghnia. Method:The case-control study was carried out among diabetic patients and healthy subjects at the Regional Hospital Centre of Maghnia and the survey was conducted from July 2008 to May 2009. The study included 280 cases (with diabetes) and 271 controls (without diabetes). The interviews were based on a questionnaire that includes three sections. Part A was designed to collect demographic information. Part B included the lifestyle data (e.g. smoking habits, BMI, physical activity, etc…) and metabolic characteristics were determined in the last part. Data was analyzed using XLSTAT for Windows. The chi-squared test used for the categorical variables, while the student's T test was used for continuous variables. The logistic regression analyses were used to predict risk factors for diabetes. Results:The study revealed that low educational level, low economic level, number of children and number of people living at same house, obesity, physical inactivity, irregular food intake and hypertension were the most important environmental risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes. For the persons who had a family history of diabetes mellitus, the risk for developing this disease was statistically significant (OR=0.51, 95%CI=0.36-0.74, P=0.0001). Conclusion:The present study suggests that low socioeconomic level, changes lifestyle-habits (physical inactivity, irregular dietary intake), obesity, hypertension, hyperglycemia and hypertryglyceridemea have been attributed to an unmasking of genetic defect that presented in subjects of this study. This association has a major impact in the rise prevalence of type 2 diabetes.

Background: To determine the relationship between ABO/rhesus (Rh) blood groups and type 2 diabetes mellitus in a western Algerian population. Method: This case-control study was conducted at the Regional Hospital Centre of Maghnia, Tlemcen, from July 2008 to May 2009, involving 280 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and 271 healthy controls. Blood samples were collected from the patients after consent had been obtained. The samples were tested for ABO and Rh blood groups, using the Beth-Vincent and Simonin-Michon methods. The allele frequencies were calculated according to the Bernstein formulas. Results: The χ 2 test results showed that there was no association between the ABO blood group and type 2 diabetes mellitus. It was also noted that the O blood group was distributed with the highest frequency among diabetic subjects (52.85%). For the Rh system, d allele frequency presence was higher in diabetics than in nondiabetics (0.3778 and 0.3644 respectively). The difference between phenotype frequencies was not significant (p = 0.733). The distribution of ABO/Rh blood groups between gender and ethnic group showed no significant difference (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Our study confirms that there is no association between ABO/Rh blood group and diabetes mellitus in this Algerian population.

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Background: Down syndrome (DS) is the most common type of chromosomal trisomy found in new-born. It's associated with mental retardation and characteristic facial features. A clinical diagnosis of Down syndrome may be unconfirmed in one third of cases.Objective: This study was conducted to confirm the clinical diagnosis of suspected cases with Down syndrome by a cytogenetic analysis and to evaluate several risk factors associated with trisomy 21 in a group of patients from West region of Algeria, Tlemcen. Materials and method:Karyotype analysis was carried out for 22 patients with the clinical diagnosis of Down syndrome. GTG-band and RTG-band have been made according to the standard protocols.Results: Among the 22 cases with Down syndrome, Free trisomy 21 was presented in 20 cases (91%). One case (4.5%) had translocation Down syndrome. One other case had mosaic Down syndrome. There was an excess of male than female; sex ratio was 1.75:1. The mean maternal age at birth of the affected children was 36.27 ± 7.59 years. It was significantly higher than this of mothers of non-trisomic children (27.83 ± 6.34 years; p=0.0002). Higher parity was an important risk factor associated with trisomy 21, 81% of affected children were of last or second last birth order. Paternal age and consanguinity had no effect. Conclusion:The identification of specific types of chromosomal abnormalities in Down syndrome children is very significant. It greatly helped in the management of these children and to make aware the affected families about the recurrence risk and the options available.frequency ranges from 2% to 5% [10]. However, these values show a geographical variation from the Eastern to the Western countries. In Algeria, the number of children with Down syndrome is about 80.000 cases [11]. No data is yet available about cytogenetic variants of Down syndrome in the Algerian population.The aim of this study was to describe the cytogenetic profile of children with Down syndrome in the west region of Algeria, Tlemcen. Study the impact of maternal age and other risk factors associated with this disorder. Then review and compare the findings of previous international studies with our results.