White Blood Cell Count Is Positively Correlated With Albumin Excretion Rate in Subjects With Type 2 Diabetes

White blood cell (WBC) count is one of the main inflammatory markers that predict cardiovascular events (1) and is a component (in nondiabetic subjects) of the insulin resistance syndrome (2), a clustering of cardiovascular risk factors showing insulin resistance as a common denominator (3). It is not known whether WBC count correlates with albumin excretion rate (AER), a component of the insulin resistance syndrome conferring a particularly strong risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality (3). To evaluate whether WBC count correlates with AER in type 2 diabetes, we evaluated 659 Italian type 2 diabetic patients (354 men and 305 women) followed-up at the University Diabetes Unit of the San Luigi Gonzaga Hospital in Orbassano, Turin, Italy, who were not affected by neoplastic, inflammatory, infective, or liver diseases. AER was determined by nephelometric …