Endocrine Abstracts

Summary: Hyperuricemia is associated with glucose metabolism disorders clinically. In this study, we evaluated the relationship between serum uric acid concentrations and some insulin resistance/sensitivity parameters in Turkish type 2 diabetes mellitus patients.

Methods: The anthropometric and laboratory data of 87 type 2 diabetes patients of both sexes (35 male, 52 female) were evaluated retrospectively. HOMA-IR (homeostatic model of insulin resistance) and QUICKI (quantitative insulin sensitivity check index) measurements were made by the formulae of [glucose (mg/dl) × insulin (μu/ml)]/405 and 1/[log ins (μu /ml)+log glu (mg/dl)] respectively.

Results: The mean age of the patients were 54.4±11.2 (minimum 20, maximum 77) years. The serum uric acid values ranged from 1.7 to 9.6 with a mean of 4.82±1.39. HOMA-IR values ranged from 0.51 to 25.99 with a median of 3.27±2.57. QUICKI values ranged from 0.25 to 0.43 with a median of 0.32±0.04. There was a positive and significant correlation between serum uric acid and insulin levels (r=0.301; P=0.005). There was a negative and significant correlation between serum uric acid and A1c and glucose levels (r=−0.372; P=0.000 and r=−0.313; P=0.003). The correlation of uric acid to age, diabetes duration and body mass index did not reach statistical significance. Although the correlation of uric acid to HOMA-IR and QUICKI values did not reach statistical significance (r=0.128; P=0.236 and r=−0.128; P=0.236), HOMA-IR values increased but QUICKI values decreased with increasing uric acid levels.

Conclusion: Although the correlations did not reach statistical significance, serum uric acid levels are positively correlated to insulin resistance parameter (HOMA-IR) and negatively correlated to insulin sensitivity parameter (QUICKI) as expected. The small sample size of our cohort might be responsible for this statistical insignificance. The negative correlation of serum uric acid to glucose and A1c might be related to increased renal excretion of uric acid together with glucose due to osmotic diuresis. These results must be confirmed with larger studies.