title: Association between Diabetic Polyneuropathy and Cardiovascular Complications in Type 2 Diabetic Patients.
abstract: 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).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  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.
authors: Department of Internal Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Korea.
authors: Jin Ook
authors: JO
authors: Chung
authors: Dong Hyeok
authors: DH
authors: Cho
authors: Dong Jin
authors: DJ
authors: Chung
authors: Min Young
authors: MY
authors: Chung