Prevalence of microvascular diseases among tertiary care Chinese with early versus late onset of type 2 diabetes

AimsThis study aimed to investigate the impact of early-onset diabetes on the risk of microvascular diseases in Chinese with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).MethodsA cross sectional survey of 29,442 patients with T2DM in 77 tertiary hospitals in China was conducted in 2011. Early-onset diabetes was defined as diagnosis of diabetes before 40 years of age. Microvascular complications and risk factors were documented. Prevalence of microvascular disease was standardized to the Chinese population in 2010. Logistic regression analysis was performed to obtain odds ratios (OR) for early versus late onset of T2DM.ResultsA total of 1,303 (4.4%) patients had nephropathy, 2,137 (7.3%) had retinopathy and 3,012 (10.2%) had either of them. Early-onset diabetes greatly increased the prevalence of microvascular diseases compared with late-onset diabetes (nephropathy: 5.1% vs. 1.5%; retinopathy: 7.1% vs. 2.7%; either: 9.7% vs. 3.6%), especially among patients from 45 to 59 years of age. After adjusting for age and sex, patients with early-onset T2DM were at 1.69-fold (95% CI 1.46-1.95) higher risk of microvascular diseases than those with late-onset T2DM. However, this was not significant after adjusting for traditional risk factors and disease duration (p = 0.162).ConclusionChinese patients with early-onset T2DM are at a marked increased risk of microvascular diseases.