Association of triglyceride glucose index and triglyceride HDL ratio with glucose levels, microvascular and macrovascular complications in Diabetes Mellitus Type-2

OBJECTIVE: To find out the role of triglyceride glucose index (TGI) and triglyceride HDL ratio (THR) as predictors of insulin resistance and control of glucose status in type two diabetes mellitus (T2DM). METHOD: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Dr. Akbar Niazi Teaching Hospital, January-April 2022. A total of 56 individuals, both males and females aged 30-75 years having T2DM with fasting blood glucose ≥ 110 mg/dl and HbA1c ≥ 5.7% were included. Biochemical markers were estimated by applying standard methods. Independent sample t-test, Fisher exact test, and linear regression were applied. RESULTS: TGI and triglyceride HDL ratio were significantly raised (p=0.01) in patients with poor glycemic control as compared to controlled glucose levels (17.8 ± 4.7vs7.3 ± 1.75) and (3.84 ± 1.3vs2.12 ± 0.64) respectively. These two indices have a significant association (p=0.01) with HbA1c (r=0.963, r=0.757), fasting blood glucose (r=0.964, r=0.748), and HOMA-IR (r=0.955, r=0.718) respectively. Moreover, TGI and THR were found to have a more significant association with the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) (r=0.717, r=0.555) and a significant but weak association with nephropathy (r=0.385, r=0.302) respectively. Regression analysis revealed that both TGI and THR have significant predictive ability for HbA1c, fasting blood glucose, HOMA-IR and CVD (delta R(2)=0.738vs 0.408, 0.740vs0.395, 0.725vs0.362, 0.354vs0.170) respectively, after controlling all confounding variables. CONCLUSIONS: TGI and THR have a strong association and predictive capability to identify insulin resistance and detect the development and progression of T2DM. Moreover, TGI can be more precisely used for prediction analysis as compared to THR.