Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an important endocrine disorder in dogs. This study explored prior exposure to glucocorticoids or antibiotic treatment as risk factors for developing DM in dogs attending primary-care VetCompass clinics in the UK.
Methods: A breed frequency matched case-control study nested in a cohort of dogs (n = 480,469) aged 3 years or over was used to explore associations between glucocorticoid and antibiotic exposure and the odds of developing DM.
Results: A total of 565 cases and 2179 controls were included. Dogs with DM had over four times the odds of exposure to glucocorticoids within 6 weeks prior to diagnosis (odds ratio [OR] 4.07, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.41-6.89, p < 0.001) compared to controls within 6 weeks prior to a randomly selected quasi-date of diagnosis. Dogs that had only one unique documented antibiotic course had a decreased odds of developing DM (OR 0.65, 95% CI 0.46-0.91, p = 0.012) compared to dogs that had no documented courses of antibiotics.
Limitations: This study only included selected breeds, so the results may not be generalisable to all dog breeds.
Conclusions: Exposure to glucocorticoids is associated with a substantial increase in the risk of developing DM for the dog breeds included in this analysis.
Keywords: VetCompass; antibiotics; case-control study; diabetes mellitus; glucocorticoids; risk factors.
© 2023 The Authors. Veterinary Record published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Veterinary Association.