Khalilur Rehman, Rizwan Hashim, Mohammad Saeed Anwer, Aaeisha Qureshi, Khursheed Mohammad.
Type 2 diabetes and its association with hypertension and high urinary albumin excretion.
Pak J Med Res Jan ;43(4):153-6.

Diabetes mellitus, a major metabolic disease, is six leading cause of death by disease worldwide. Type 2 diabetes along with its chronic complications is a common problem in our country. Hypertension and high urinary albumin excretion are commonly associated with type 2 diabetes. Both are risk factors for renal and cardiac disease in diabetics. Objective: To assess the frequency of hypertension and high urinary albumin excretion in type 2 diabetics as compared to controls. Design: A case-control study. Place & Duration of Study: Type 2 diabetic subjects seen at Combined Military Hospital, Lahore from January to May 2003. Subjects and Methods: This hospital based study examined 150 patients with type 2 diabetes (85 men, 65 women, mean age 56.4±9.9 years) and 100 non-diabetic controls (60 men, 40 women, mean age 54.6±4.6 years) of both sexes and various age groups. The clinical and laboratory variables were statistically evaluated with significance at p. Results: The mean duration of diabetes was 6.4±6.9 years in patients. Means of fasting plasma glucose, glycated haemoglobin, systolic blood pressure, urinary albumin excretion and creatinine levels were higher in diabetics than similar levels in the non-diabetic controls (p <0.05). The frequency of hypertension was higher (37.3%) in diabetics than controls which was 18.0%. The body mass index, blood lipids and urea levels were comparable in diabetic patients and controls (p>0.05). Conclusion: Hypertension and high urinary albumin excretion show significant association with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

USER COMMENTS

Two comments on this article: 1. It is a well-known that there is association between DM type 2 and hypertension and microalbuminuria. If someone does not know it then may be he/she needs to go to medical school again. 2. Many diabetics ultimately develop microalbumoinuria and then frank albuminuria. It depends on the duration of the diabetes. In this study patients had mean duration of DM for 6.4(SD=6.9) years. This means that about 95% of the patients had diabetes for almost 0-20 years and 50% of the patients had diabetes for more than 6.4 years. I am unable to understand what did investigators try to find/prove when doing/conducting this study. Probably a better way of looking at the data would have been to evaluate the demographic and clinical features of the patients presenting with diabetes to the investigator's institution. Probably the most striking finding that investigators had was that there was no difference in BMI, or lipid levels between controls and diabetics. However, I think they would have find it difficult to explain without raising serious doubts about the authenticity of their study.
Posted by: rqayyum on May 2005

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