Background: The association between DNA damage and diabetes mellitus promote us to study the extent of this health problem in the community.

Objectives: To test the hypothesis that patients with diabetes have a greater extent of DNA damage than healthy individuals and to analyze its  relationship with oxidative stress biomarkers.

Materials and Methods: The study was carried out between September  2016 and March 2018 at Duhok Diabetes Center, Azadi General Teaching  Hospital, Duhok, Kurdistan Region (Iraq).In this study, we measured biomarkers of both DNA damage and oxidative stress including serum 8-

hydroxy-2-, deoxiguanosine (8-OHdG), malondialdehyde (MDA) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in 297 patients with type 2 diabetes and 188  healthy individuals

Results: Significantly higher 8-OHdG and MDA levels (p<0.001 and  p<0.010 respectively) together with lower TAC levels (p=0.010) were found in diabetics compared to healthy individuals. In diabetic patients, a positive correlation of 8-OHdG was observed with MDA (p<0.010), and a negative correlation was observed with TAC (p<0.001). Based on the estimated cutoff point of DNA damage (8-OHdG of 4.0 ng/ml), 84.6% of patients had high levels of DNA damage compared with healthy individuals (28.7%).

Conclusions: DNA damage was observed in approximately two-thirds of the  population of this study, particularly diabetic patients appears to be associated with lower antioxidant capacity and a high degree of oxidative stress. Antioxidant supplementation may be an effective public health  intervention to reduce DNA damage and oxidative stress.

HIVI M. Mahmoud is a Lecturer in the Department of Medical Chemistry, College of Medicine at University of Duhok, Duhok, Kurdistan Region in Iraq.