Correlation Between Vascular Damage and Microalbuminuria in Non-Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus

The aim of the present study was to elucidate whether non-insulin-dependent diabetics with microalbuminuria have associated with atherosclerotic vascular damage by using plasma endothelin, fibrinogen and von Willebrand factor (vWF) as markers. Seventy-six non-insulin-dependent diabetic patients (48 men and 28 women: mean age, 51 ± 10 yrs) without overt proteinuria or cardiovascular disease were studied. Patients were assigned two groups based on their timed overnight urinary albumin excretion rate (AER): a normoalbuminuric group (AER < 10 μg/min) consisting of 47 patients (25 men and 22 women: mean age 46 ± 14 yrs) and a microalbuminuric group (AER: 10～200 μg/min) consisting of 29 patients (23 men and 6 women: mean age 54 ± 7 yrs). The plasma endothelin concentrations in the microalbuminuric group (3.2 ± 0.5 pg/ml) were significantly higher than in the normoalbuminuric group (2.0 ± 0.4 pg/ml, p<0.05) Plasma fibrinogen concentrations in the microalbuminuric group (353.4 ± 15. 6 mg/dl) were also significantly higher than in the normoalbuminuric group (291.3 ± 11.8 mg/dl, p