Reference intervals and factors contributing to serum glycated albumin levels in West China

In diabetic patients, non-enzymatically glycated albumin (GA), Amadori adducts, has been suggested as an ideal biomarker of short-term glycemic control.

To describe the reference intervals of serum GA and identify factors associated with serum GA, including age, gender, hemoglobin A1C (HbA1c) levels, fasting blood glucose (FPG) levels, total glycerin (TG) levels, total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), systolic pressure (SBP) and diastolic pressure (DBP).

This study enrolled 1,296 healthy participants aged between 18 to 84 years of age attending physical tests in West China. Serum GA, blood glucose, blood lipid, and HbA1c levels were tested with commercially available reagents on automated clinical chemistry analyzers.

In the West China population, the levels of serum GA concentrations were 11.6% (95% CI, 11.4 - 11.7) for overall population and 11.3% (95% CI, 11.1 - 11.4) and 11.9% (95% CI, 11.8 - 12.0) for males and females, respectively. In contrast, in a multiple model, gender (beta = 0.127), age (beta = 0.125), and HbAlc (beta = 0.177) were positively correlated with GA whilst body mass index (BMI) (beta = -0.197) and TG (beta = -0.153) were negatively correlated with GA.

The reference intervals of GA were partitioned into five categories by age and gender; 8.7 - 13.7% for subjects aged 18 to 29 including both male and female, 8.1 - 13.7% for 30 to 49 years old males, 9.4 - 14.2% for 30 - 49 years old females, 9.1 - 14.9% for male and female subjects aged 50 - 59 and 9.6 - 15.7% for the male and female subjects over the age of 60 years.