Longer diabetes duration increases risk for Frozen shoulder, independent of diabetes type

Literature states that early diagnosis of diabetes mellitus may reduce the risk of long-term chronic disability of the shoulder as well as other complications. However, recently a report mentioned that there are different associations of frozen shoulder with gender and that haemoglobin A1C were observed for type 1 (T1D) or type 2 (T2D) diabetes, according to the study published in the Experimental and Clinical Endocrinology & Diabetes.

Alexander J. Eckert and colleagues from the Institute of Epidemiology and Medical Biometry, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany examined the association of frozen shoulder (FS) with demographic and diabetes-related outcomes in individuals with type 1 (T1D) or type 2 (T2D) diabetes aged ≥30 years.

Multivariable logistic regression models, adjusted for demographics were used to calculate the proportion of FS in association with age, gender, diabetes duration, body mass index (BMI), haemoglobin A1C (HbA1c) and diabetes treatment.

The following findings were observed-

a. The unadjusted percentage of frozen shoulder was higher in T1D compared to T2D (0.22% vs. 0.06%).

b. In T1D, adjusted regression models revealed higher prevalence of frozen shoulder in women than men (0.26 [0.20–0.34] % vs. 0.15 [0.11–0.21] %, p=0.010).

c. No significant relationship of age and BMI with frozen shoulder was found in both diabetes types.

d. Longer diabetes duration was associated with a higher proportion of frozen shoulder in T1D (p<0.001) and T2D (p=0.004).

e. In T1D, HbA1c >7% was related to a higher proportion of frozen shoulder compared to HbA1c ≤7%, while an inverse relationship was found in T2D.

Therefore, it was concluded that different associations of frozen shoulder with gender and haemoglobin A1C were observed for T1D and T2D; however, longer diabetes duration increases the risk for frozen shoulder independent of diabetes type.

Musculoskeletal diseases are still underreported in individuals with diabetes and awareness should be raised for frozen shoulder as a specific diabetes complication, they further added.

DOI: 10.1055/a-1543-8559