Prevalence and Risk Factors of Diabetic Nephropathy in an Urban South Indian Population The Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study (CURES 45)

OBJECTIVE — The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of diabetic nephrop-athy among urban Asian-Indian type 2 diabetic subjects. RESEARCHDESIGNANDMETHODS — Type 2 diabetic subjects (n 1,716), inclu-sive of known diabetic subjects (KD subjects) (1,363 of 1,529; response rate 89.1%) and ran-domly selected newly diagnosed diabetic subjects (NDD subjects) (n 353) were selected from the Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study (CURES). Microalbuminuria was estimated by immunoturbidometric assay and diagnosed if albumin excretion was between 30 and 299g/mg of creatinine, and overt nephropathy was diagnosed if albumin excretion was 300 g/mg of creatinine in the presence of diabetic retinopathy, which was assessed by stereoscopic retinal color photography. RESULTS — The prevalence of overt nephropathy was 2.2 % (95 % CI 1.51–2.91). Microalbu-minuria was present in 26.9 % (24.8–28.9). Compared with the NDD subjects, KD subjects had greater prevalence rates of both microalbuminuria with retinopathy and overt nephropathy (8.4 vs. 1.4%, P 0.001; and 2.6 vs. 0.8%, P 0.043, respectively). Logistic regression analysis showed that A1C (odds ratio 1.325 [95 % CI 1.256–1.399], P 0.001), smoking (odds rati