Association between phase angle and diabetic peripheral neuropathy in Type 2 diabetes patients

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), the very prevalent microvascular complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), severely threatens the quality of life of diabetic patients. Thus, prevention of DPN is extremely important for public health, and the identification of potential biomarkers may help with early prevention. Our work determined the association between phase angles (PhAs) and the risk of DPN in T2DM patients.

This cross-sectional study recruited 697 T2DM patients from the Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University. All patients were divided into the non-diabetic peripheral neuropathy group and diabetic peripheral neuropathy group, and the DPN group was further divided into low, medium, and high diabetic foot ulcer risk groups according to vibration perception threshold results. Using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses continuously, the relationship between PhAs (arms, legs, trunk, and whole body) and the risk of DPN were evaluated. Further analysis was conducted on different subgroups of the study population.

After adjusting for the potential covariates, multivariate logistic regression analyses indicated that PhAs of the arms, legs, and whole body correlated inversely with the risk of DPN. However, the PhA of the trunk had no significant correlation with DPN. According to the stratified subgroup analysis, the negative association between PhA of the whole body and the risk of DPN remained significant in the sex and BMI group except for participants with BMI ≥ 28 kg/m².

For the first time, PhAs were acknowledged to be independently associated with DPN. Further exploration is needed to explain the findings.