Digital clubbing and metabolic syndrome

Background: Any relationship between clubbing and metabolic syndrome was studied. Methods: The study was performed in the Internal Medicine Polyclinic. Results: The study included 224 cases (104 with clubbing), in total. The mean age of clubbing cases was 49.2 years, and there was a male predominance (81.7%). There were significantly higher prevalences of smoking and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in the clubbing group (69.2 vs 41.6% and 27.8 vs 10.8%, respectively, p<0.001 for both). Although the body mass index (BMI), weight, and fasting plasma glucose (FPG) were lower in the clubbing group, the differences were nonsignificant probably due to the small sample size, although the negative effect of small sample size, and prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) was significantly lower in the clubbing group (12.5 vs 21.6%, p<0.05). Mean low density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride values were higher in the clubbing group, non-significantly. Although both the systolic and diastolic blood pressures (BP) were lower in the clubbing group, the difference was only significant for systolic BP (127.6 vs 136.9 mmHg, p=0.011). On the other hand, prevalence of coronary heart disease (CHD) and/or peripheric artery disease (PAD) were significantly higher in the clubbing group (7.6 vs 0.0%, p<0.01). Conclusion: There are direct relationships between clubbing and prevalence of smoking, COPD, CHD and PAD, probably due to the atherosclerotic effects of smoking, whereas BMI, weight, FPG, systolic and diastolic BPs and prevalence of DM are inversely related with clubbing, probably due to suppressor effects of smoking on appetite.