Association between Diabetic Polyneuropathy and Cardiovascular Complications in Type 2 Diabetic Patients

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus is a major independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), but high cardiovascular risk in diabetes mellitus patients is not completely explained by clustering traditional risk factors. Recently, associations between diabetic polyneuropathy (DPN) and macrovasculopathy have been suggested. We aimed to assess associations between DPN and cardiovascular complications in type 2 diabetic patients. METHODS: Microvascular and cardiovascular complications were evaluated in 1,041 type 2 diabetic patients. RESULTS: In patients with DPN, the age, prevalence of hypertension, diabetes duration, systolic blood pressure, pulse pressure, and hemoglobin glycation (HbA1c) levels were significantly higher, while the high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels were lower than in those without DPN. The prevalence of CVD was higher in patients with DPN. In multivariate analysis, DPN was independently associated with CVD (odds ratio, 1.801; 95% confidence interval, 1.009 to 3.214). CONCLUSION: Our results showed that DPN was associated with a high prevalence of cardiovascular disease in type 2 diabetic patients, but further studies are needed to investigate the causative nature of associations between DPN and CVD.