Microalbuminuria and Hyperinsulinemia as Predictors of Cardiovascular Disease in Metabolic Syndrome Patients

Introduction Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of metabolic factors which includes central obesity, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and hypertension. Microalbuminuria has also been considered to be a component of metabolic syndrome. It is associated with a two fold increase in cardiovascular diseases and 1.5 fold rises in all cause mortality. Microalbuminuria has an ability to predict cardiovascular disease mortality as it is a marker for endothelial injury. Materials and Methods A cross sectional study was performed including 250 subjects aged between 18-60 years in a state of fasting for atleast 10 hours. Fasting insulin, fasting blood sugar, lipid profile and urinary microalbumin creatinine ratio (ACR) measurement were done in metabolic syndrome patients. Independent t test and chi square test were done to analyze the data. A p value less than0.05 was considered statistically significant Results Hyperinsulinemia was found to be strongly and significantly associated with microalbuminuria and urinary microalbumin creatinine ratio (p value less than 0.0001). There was a strong and highly significant correlation between insulin and urinary ACR. Microalbuminuria was also found to be significantly associated with diastolic blood pressure (p= 0.021) and systolic BP (p=0.016). Conclusion Microalbuminuria has been reported to be a good cardiovascular marker by many research workers. In our cross sectional study, a strong and significant association has been observed between hyperinsulinemia and microalbuminuria. Hence hyperinsulinemia and microalbuminuria predict probability of developing cardiovascular disease and there is a need for developing guidelines for their management to decrease the global burden of cardiovascular diseases.