Low serum creatinine levels as risk factor of diabetes mellitus: prediabetes considerations

Abstract

Objective: It has been reported that low serum creatinine level is a risk factor of diabetes. We hypothesize that should this be true, serum creatinine levels would be lower and more prevalent in prediabetes than in normal individuals. Materials and methods: 1017 glucose tolerance tests performed at South West Pathology Service of the New South Wales Health, Australia, in 2008 were sorted into normal (control), prediabetes and diabetes based on decisive interpretation. All cases with creatinine results in the control (n=48), diabetes (n=18) and prediabetes (n=36) groups were selected. Results: Mean levels of serum creatinine levels in the controls (80±32/4mol/L), diabetes (82±26/xmol/L) and prediabetes (82±23/zmol/L) were not statistically significantly different. The prevalence of low levels of serum creatinine is less in prediabetes (11%) than in the control (23%). Conclusion: Further studies using a larger number and adjusting for confounding factors is needed to ascertain the role of low serum creatinine level as a risk factor of diabetes.