Association of Microalbuminuria with Ischemic Heart Disease, Dyslipidemia and Obesity among Diabetic Patients: Experience from 5 Year Follow up Study of 1415 Patients

This paper presents a microalbuminuria, a novel marker incipient nephropathy, and its simultaneous association at cross sectional level with ischemic heart disease, dyslipidemia and obesity among diabetic patients which has not been studied together in the past. Variables BMI, HbA1c, creatinine, total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL-C, HDL-C, microalbuminuria, systolic and diastolic blood pressure were measured and compared for the two groups with and without IHD, nephropathy, dyslipidemia and obesity. Statistically it was observed that microalbuminuria, nephropathy, hypertension, and dyslipidemia were significantly associated with the development of ischemic heart disease (p-value < 0.0001 for all). Furthermore, Hypertension was significantly associated with nephropathy as obesity was associated with development of hypertension (p-value < 0.0001 for both variables). Additionally, it was demonstrated that both BMI and HDL-C were inversely and significantly correlated (p-value < 0.05). Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure significantly correlated with the development of microalbuminuria in this diabetic population (p-value < 0.0001 for both). Current study recommends screening diabetic patients early for microalbuminuria at primary care level, to target high BMI and HbA1c, early diagnosis and treatment of hypertension and dyslipidemia to prevent further diabetic complications and economic burden.