(1) Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is a chronic metabolic disease with serious health complications. T2DM is associated with many chronic illnesses, including kidney failure, cardiovascular diseases (CVD), vision loss, and other related diseases. Obesity is one of the major factors associated with insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. Recently, the development of GLP-1 Receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) showed great therapeutic potential for T2DM. Aim: To retrospectively investigate the association of the long-term use of GLP-1RA therapy in T2DM patients with HbA1c levels and dyslipidemia. (2) Methods: Retrospective data collection and analysis of demographic, clinical records, and biochemical parameters were carried out for 72 T2DM taking GLP-1RA treatments for six months. (3) Results: A total of 72 T2DM patients with a mean age = 55 (28 male and 44 female) were divided into two groups. Group 1 received statins (n = 63), and group 2 did not receive statins (n = 9). The GLP-1RA effect on BMI was significantly decreased in group 1 (p < 0.01). A significant effect was observed for HbA1c in both groups for six months of treatment duration (p < 0.05). The AST levels significantly decreased in group 2 from 25.2 to 19.4 U\L (p = 0.011). (4) Conclusions: GLP-1RA treatments were associated with weight reduction and improved glycemic control for T2DM patients. Moreover, it is suggested that it has anti-inflammatory and hepatoprotective effects. However, no direct association was found with the lipid profile in all groups of T2DM.

Background The global incidence of thyroid cancer (TC) has increased significantly over the past decades. In Saudi Arabia, it is the third most common cancer among adults. This study aims to review the clinical and histopathological characteristics of TC in Saudi Arabia and analyze the size trend over the years. Methods We conducted a retrospective chart review of all differentiated and poorly differentiated TC patients following up at a tertiary care center in the Western region of Saudi Arabia. All patients 11 years and older, diagnosed between 2004 - 2018, and with sufficient histopathological data were included. Follicular and poorly differentiated TC were categorized and tumor stage was allocated. We performed descriptive and size trend analysis. Results We had a total of 285 patients who qualified for inclusion. The mean age at diagnosis was 40.6 years, and 81.05% of patients were females. Papillary TC comprised 88.07% of these neoplasms, and most patients (89.12%) were at Stage I. Only papillary TC showed a gender difference in the age of the diagnosis. In men, the mean age at diagnosis of papillary TC was 46.98 ± 15.4 years, while in female patients, it was 39.02 ± 12.8 years (p-value = 0.0001). We did not find a trend toward smaller tumours in the more recent years in comparison to the early years (r = -0.083, p-value = 0.168). Conclusions TC is diagnosed at a younger age and larger sizes in Saudi Arabia in comparison to other countries. A gender difference was only noted with papillary TC in regard to the age of diagnosis. There was no trend toward smaller sizes of TC over the years.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is common among Saudi patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). However, recommended clinical procedures to detect it are unavailable in many locations. Therefore, better and more available diagnostic biomarkers for NAFLD are needed. Various serum parameters were suggested, and algorithms that employ routine measurements in clinical practice have been developed for the prediction of fat stores in the liver in different populations. However, no such studies have been conducted on Saudis. We aimed to compare selected biochemical markers and calculated indices in T2DM patients diagnosed with NAFLD and patients without NAFLD to find the best markers associated with NAFLD. A cross-sectional study was employed to recruit 67 people with T2DM from endocrine outpatient clinics at King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital. NAFLD was detected by ultrasonography in 28 patients. Demographic information, anthropometric, and blood pressure (BP) measurements were taken. Fasting blood samples were obtained to measure glucose, glycated haemoglobin, lipid profile, liver function tests, and highly sensitive C-reactive protein. Fatty liver index, hepatic steatosis index, NAFLD-liver fat score, and triglyceride and glucose index were calculated. Following stepwise forward likelihood ratio regression with independent variables included in one model using binary logistic regression with age and waist circumference (WC) entered as covariates, elevated diastolic BP and low high-density lipoprotein- cholesterol remained significantly associated with NAFLD (p = 0.002 and 0.03, respectively). However, none of the investigated indices could be used to diagnose the disease adequately due to low specificity, even after calculating new cut-off values. Investigating novel markers and adjusting existing equations used to calculate indices to improve sensitivity and specificity in our population is needed.

Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is associated with dysregulated lipid metabolism, but the serum lipid species associated with established T2DM may vary across populations and analytical platforms. We conducted an exploratory cross-sectional untargeted lipidomic analysis to characterize serum lipid features differing between adults with established T2DM and control participants. Methods: Serum samples from 36 patients with T2DM and 33 controls were analyzed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-Orbitrap mass spectrometry. Lipidomic variation was assessed by principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering, followed by univariate analysis of putatively annotated lipid species, covariate-adjusted models, correlation with glycemic and lipid parameters in patients, and internally cross-validated receiver operating characteristic analysis. Results: Several phosphatidylcholine species (PC 38:4, PC 38:5, and PC 40:8) and PE 38:1 were higher in T2DM, whereas PI 36:1, TAG 54:6, and PC 32:2 were lower. These associations persisted after adjustment for age, sex, and body mass index and in participants with comparable reported fasting duration (>8 h but <10 h), but none of the principal species correlated significantly with HbA1c, plasma glucose, triglycerides, non-HDL cholesterol, or the triglyceride-glucose index among patients. A sex-by-disease interaction was supported only for PE 36:1, which was elevated predominantly in female patients. Conclusions: In this exploratory cross-sectional cohort, established T2DM was associated with selective differences in putatively annotated phospholipid and glycerolipid features. These findings do not establish causality, specificity for diabetes relative to broader metabolic dysfunction, or diagnostic utility and require future confirmation in larger longitudinal cohorts with targeted quantification and independent validation.

Within the diverse cancers reported, the epidemiology of thyroid cancer increased 3-fold in the latest years which may be due lifestyle changes, lack of cancer awareness, lack of screening, and early cancer investigations and detection programs in addition to genetics and deficiency of iodine and vitamin D. The aim of this review was to discuss Thyroid cancer incidence, risk factors, and clinical features and prognosis. The cause of thyroid cancer is unknown, but because the thyroid gland is very sensitive to radiation, exposure to radiation can cause precancerous changes. For unclear reasons, thyroid cancer like almost all diseases of the thyroid, occurs about 3 times more often in women than in men at any age, but the risk peaks earlier for women at 40 to 50 years. Several inherited conditions have been linked to different types of thyroid cancer but some patients with thyroid cancer do not have inherited conditions or a family history of the disease. Four general types of thyroid cancer were explained, Papillary, Follicular, Medullary, and Anaplastic. Over the last decade, the incidence of Papillary and Follicular thyroid cancers increased at the same time.