Association between macro- and microvascular damage and sarcopenia index in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Sarcopenia was recently reported to be relevant to an increased macro-and microvascular disease risk. Sarcopenia index (SI) has been identified as a surrogate marker for sarcopenia. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between macro- and microvascular disease and SI in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). A total of 783 patients with T2DM were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. The SI was calculated by (serum creatinine [mg/dL]/cystatin C [mg/L]) × 100. The subjects were divided into three groups according to SI tertiles: T1 (41.27–81.37), T2 (81.38– 99.55), and T3 (99.56–192.31). Parameters of macro- and microvascular complications, including diabetic retinopathy (DR), micro- and macroalbuminuria (MAU), diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), and lower extremity peripheral artery disease (LEAD) were evaluated. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that when taking the top tertile of SI as a reference, an increasing trend of the prevalence of DR, MAU, DPN, and LEAD were presented (all P for trend < 0.05), where the OR (95% CI) for DR prevalence was 1.967 (1.252–3.090) in T2, 2.195 (1.278–3.769) in T1, for MAU was 1.805 (1.149–2.837) in T2, 2.537 (1.490–4.320) in T1, for DPN was 2.244 (1.485–3.391) in T2, 3.172 (1.884–5.341) in T1, and for LEAD was 2.017 (1.002–4.057) in T2, 2.405 (1.107–5.225) in T1 (all P < 0.05). Patients with lower SI were more inclined to have an increased risk of macro- and microvascular damage in T2DM population, which may be related to sarcopenia.