Association of uric acid and albuminuria in patients with type 2 diabetes

Abstract Background: High serum uric acid is associated with kidney damage manifested by glomerular sclerosis, hypertrophy and albuminuria in animal models. Objective: To evaluate the relationship between elevated serum uric acid and urinary albumin/creatinine ratio in type2 diabetes. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 290 patients (130 males and 160 females) with type 2 diabetes were recruited for measuring, cholesterol, triglycerides, uric acid and albumin/creatinine ratio (ACR). The data obtained for albumin/creatinine ratio were expressed as mean±SD or percentage and a P value  0.05 was considered as significant. One-way analysis of variance and Pearson correlation coefficient were used for statistical studies. Findings: The mean ages of patients were 58.2±8.6 years. Uric acid levels for normalbuminuria, microalbuminuria and marcoalbuminuria were (5.1±0.7, 6.3±1.1, and 8.1±1.3 mg/dl, respectively). While the uric acid level in men was shown to have a positive correlation with natural logarithmic ACR [Ln (ACR)], (δ=0.53, p<0.05), a positive correlation with both triglycerides and Ln (ACR) was found among women (δ=0.263, P<0.01). Conclusion: Based on our data, serum uric acid was found to be independently correlated with urinary ACR in patients with type 2 diabetes