The correlational study between serum Apelin and blood lipid level in diabetic retinopathy

Objective To investigate the role of apelin, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), High density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLC), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLC) in the development and progress of diabetic retinopathy (DR). Methods The serum concentration of apelin, HbA1c, TC, TG, HDLC and LDLC were measured in 30 normal control subjects and 90 patients with type 2 diabetic mellitus, including 30 cases without DR (NDR), 30 with non-proliferative DR (NPDR), 30 with proliferative DR (PDR). These data were analyzed by SPSS for windows 13.0. Results The serum concentration of apelin, HbA1c, TC, HDLC, LDLC were significantly higher in NDR, NPDR, PDR group than those in control group (F=403.06, 5.45, 4.27, 201.56, 4.90; P 0.05). The serum concentration of apelin, HbA1c, TC, LDLC were significantly higher in NDR, NPDR, PDR group than those in control group (t=0.30, 0.58, 0.79; P<0.05), the serum concentration of HDLC were significantly lower than those in control group(t=0.79, P<0.01). There were significantly positive correlation between the progression of DR and the serum concentration of apelin, HbA1c, TC, LDLC(r=0.962, 0.562, 0.935; P<0.05). There were significantly negative correlation between the progression of DR and the serum concentration of HDLC(r=-0.753, P<0.01). There were correlation between apelin and HbA1c, LDLC and HDLC(r=0.956, 0.741, -0.691; P<0.01). Conclusion Our data demonstrated that serum apelin levels increased significantly in patients with diabetic retinopathy, and are closely related to blood sugar, blood lipid metabolic abnormalities. Key words: Diabetic retinopathy/etiology; Dyslipidemias/metabolism; Adipokines