Background: Type 2 diabetes is one of the most prevalent and costly chronic diseases in Algeria. A multifactorial etiology was identified with important association of environmental and genetic risk factors. Objectives:The aim of this study was to determine the association of risk factors with type 2 diabetes, among adult subjects recruited from hospital in West region of Algeria, Maghnia. Method:The case-control study was carried out among diabetic patients and healthy subjects at the Regional Hospital Centre of Maghnia and the survey was conducted from July 2008 to May 2009. The study included 280 cases (with diabetes) and 271 controls (without diabetes). The interviews were based on a questionnaire that includes three sections. Part A was designed to collect demographic information. Part B included the lifestyle data (e.g. smoking habits, BMI, physical activity, etc…) and metabolic characteristics were determined in the last part. Data was analyzed using XLSTAT for Windows. The chi-squared test used for the categorical variables, while the student's T test was used for continuous variables. The logistic regression analyses were used to predict risk factors for diabetes. Results:The study revealed that low educational level, low economic level, number of children and number of people living at same house, obesity, physical inactivity, irregular food intake and hypertension were the most important environmental risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes. For the persons who had a family history of diabetes mellitus, the risk for developing this disease was statistically significant (OR=0.51, 95%CI=0.36-0.74, P=0.0001). Conclusion:The present study suggests that low socioeconomic level, changes lifestyle-habits (physical inactivity, irregular dietary intake), obesity, hypertension, hyperglycemia and hypertryglyceridemea have been attributed to an unmasking of genetic defect that presented in subjects of this study. This association has a major impact in the rise prevalence of type 2 diabetes.

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