A cross sectional study of correlation between serum uric acid level and micro-albuminuria in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus patients

Background: Even though the role of serum uric acid as an early marker of diabetic nephropathy has been documented in many western studies, the amount of literature on the subject is very limited. Objectives: To study the association between serum uric acid and micro-albuminuria in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Materials and methods: The current study was a cross sectional study, conducted in the Department of Internal Medicine, Velammal medical college and hospital, which is a tertiary care teaching hospital. The study has included a total of 269 subjects with Type 2 DM, recruited by convenient sampling. Serum uric acid was measured by Direct Enzymatic Assay and urine micro albumin levels were measured by Latex Turbidimetric method. Association between the two variables was assessed by calculating pearson correlation coefficient and the data was represented in a scatter diagram. Results: The mean age was 54.29 ±11.23 years and mean duration of diabetes was 4.85 years. Males outnumbered females by 2.84 times. There was a moderate, statistically significant correlation between HbA1 C level and serum uric acid in the study group (PCC=-0.353, p value < 0.001). There was a weak positive correlation between the blood urea levels and serum uric acid in the study group (PCC=0.145, P value 0.012). There was a weak, but statistically significant positive correlation between Hba1C values (PCC=0.170, p value 0.005), total cholesterol (PCC=0.180, p value 0.003), LDL cholesterol (PCC=0.165, p value 0.007) and urine micro albumin levels in study population. The odds of micro albuminuria were 1.02 times (95% CI 0.58 to 1.79, p value 0.944) in people with uric acid between 5 to 7.49 and 1.855times (95% CI 0.56 to 6.081, p value 0.30) in patients with uric acid level of 7.5 and above, as compared to people with uric acid levels below 5 mg/dl. Conclusions: Higher Hba1c levels were associated positively with elevated serum uric acid and micro albuminuria. Even though there is a weak positive correlation between the uric acid levels and micro albuminuria it was statistically not significant. The odds of micro albuminuria only slightly increased with increasing serum uric acid levels and duration of diabetes, but this association was statistically significant.