A case control study in Brazil was conducted to prove whether hepatitis C can cause type 2

diabetes mellitus. Diabetics are taken blood samples to test hepatitis C antibodies by enzyme-
immunoassay. . Although there is evidence that diabetes is more common among HCV-infected
patients, cross-sectional studies have shown conflicting results when the frequency of HCV
infection was analyzed in type 2 diabetes patients. In an effort to find out whether HCV infection
was more frequent among diabetic patients in our region, a case-control study was conducted to
compare type 2 diabetes patients who were being treated with patients without diabetes or glucose
intolerance who underwent other types of treatment. An immunoblot test (RIBA Chiron HCV strip
test, immunoblot test; Chiron Corporation, US) was carried out in anti-HCV PCR positive and
negative samples to confirm the anti-HCV specificity at the Central Laboratory, Cuiabá. To
participate as a control, 248 non-diabetic patients were approached. So far the first Brazilian
controlled study has assessed the relationship between HCV infection and type 2 diabetes mellitus
in Brazil. This study cannot reveal differences in the frequency of HCV infection between
diabetics and non-diabetics, which is consistent with the study by Mangia et al. [7], Sotiropoulos
et al. [8], Virseda et al. [9] and Wolff et al. [10]. On the other hand, this feature is not in
accordance with studies that found a higher prevalence of HCV infection in type 2 diabetes
patients [2, 4-6]. Their study was designed to identify a 4.5-fold difference in the prevalence of
HCV infection between diabetics and non-diabetics.