Endocrine Abstracts

Back ground: The reported prevalence of microalbuminuria (MA) range from 9% to 54%. Diabetics in these studies were hypertensive and were on different medications which could influence results. Aim: To know the prevalence of MA in diabetics not on antihypertensive medication, normal serum creatinine, no overt proteinuria and were also not on statins. Methods: The data were collected from the Diabetes Register of patients at annual check up at Hartlepool General Hospital. During these visits almost all patients supply a sample of early morning urine. Out of the 1066 who underwent check up in a year, 914 were excluded. Urinary albumin and creatinine are estimated using the Immunoturbidimetry and Jaffe's reaction methods respectively using the Beckman Coulter CX7 analyser. Microalbuminuria is defined as present if the Albumin/Creatinine Ratio (ACR) is more than 1.9 mg per mmol. Results: Of the 152 diabetics, MA was present in 16%. Other results (mean plus/minus sem) in this group compared to those without MA were as follows: age 55.7(3.3), 53.3(1.4) years; duration of diabetes 14.6(2.25); 12.3(0.97)years; BMI: 28.7(1.1), 28.2(0.4); HbA1c%: 8.7(0.3), 7.9(1.3). We have also noticed trends in the metabolic and microvascular complications with increasing ACR from less than 1 to more than 2. Because these results were based on single early morning urine samples, we looked at their MA in the past year. After exclusion of regressed and progressed groups, the complications rate remained the same. Conclusions: 16% of the normotensive diabetics have MA after strict exclusion criteria for the interfering treatments. The complication rate showed an increasing trend with the increase in the ACR within the 'normal' range.