Assessment of obesity and visceral fat in diabetic nephropathy patients

Abstract

Background: Diabetic nephropathy is one of the most common diabetic microvascular complication that typically develops after 10 years of diabetes diagnosis. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of obesity and visceral fat in Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) cases with nephropathy and without-nephropathy complication.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, diabetic nephropathy was diagnosed on the basis of biochemical tests of urine albumin, serum creatinine, eGFR, BP, and clinical assessment in patients with T2D. The prevalence of diabetic nephropathy estimated and the association between adiposity and diabetic nephropathy in patients T2D was evaluated. Measures of adiposity included body weight, Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist Circumference (WC), body fat percentage, muscle mass percentage and visceral fat percentage. Analysis of variance indicate difference in the various fat analysis parameters in presence and absence of nephropathy. PROC GLM procedure in the SAS Software was used for statistical calculations.Results: A total of 247 patients with type 2 diabetes (mean age 53.46±11.62 years; 39.5% females) were enrolled in this study. The participants were grouped as with Diabetic Nephropathy (DN) 41.60% (N=99) and without Diabetic Nephropathy (NDN) 58.40% (N=139). The comparison of DN and Non-DN groups showed no significant difference in the BMI, body and visceral fat, muscle mass percentage. Conclusions: Irrespective of the nephropathy status the body fat and visceral fat percentage is increased, and the muscle mass percentage is decreased in diabetes patients. As both obesity and diabetes contribute to the development and progression of renal disease, measures should to taken to reduce the body fat.