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Free fatty acids are associated with muscle dysfunction in Chinese adults with type 2 diabetes

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Abstract

Purpose

Muscle dysfunction is considered a sign of poor prognosis in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Thus, early detection of muscle disorders is particularly important in the T2D population. Free fatty acids (FFAs) are clinical indicators of metabolic diseases and muscle function; hence, we aimed to investigate the association between FFAs and muscle function.

Methods

A total of 160 adult subjects with T2D were characterized and analyzed in this study. Muscle mass and function were measured by walking speed, grip strength and height-adjusted appendicular skeletal muscle mass (ASMM). Partial correlation was applied to explore the correlations between FFAs and muscle indicators. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were utilized to determine the diagnostic value of FFAs in muscle mass and function.

Results

The FFAs levels were negatively correlated with ASMM (r = −0.347, P = 1.0E-05), grip strength (r = −0.313, P = 7.1E-05) and walking speed (r = −0.167, P = 0.039). Notably, the relationships between FFAs levels and ASMM and walking speed remained significant even after adjusting for age, sex, body mass index (BMI), diabetes duration, and hemoglobin A1C (HbA1c). The combination of conventional indicators, including age, BMI, and HbA1c levels, provided a discrimination of low grip strength with an AUC of 0.648, and low walking speed with an AUC of 0.714. Importantly, when FFAs levels were added to the model, the value of the ROC curve was further improved, with an AUC of 0.785 for low grip strength and 0.755 for low walking speed.

Conclusions

The current study demonstrated a negative correlation between FFAs and muscle indicators in adult patients with T2D after adjusting for HbA1c levels. FFAs may play an important role in the pathological processes of muscle dysfunction in adults with T2D.

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Abbreviations

T2D:

type 2 diabetes

FFAs:

free fatty acids

ASMM:

height-adjusted appendicular skeletal muscle mass

ROC:

receiver operating characteristic curves

BMI:

body mass index

HbA1c:

hemoglobin A1C

IDF:

International Diabetes Federation

SBP:

systolic blood pressure

DBP:

diastolic blood pressure

ASM:

appendicular skeletal muscle

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants for their continuing participation in this research effort.

Funding

This study was supported by Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals Incubating Program (PX2020034), Xuanwu Hospital Science Program for Fostering Young Scholars (QNPY2020014), the pilot project for public welfare development and reform of Beijing-affiliated medical research institutes (Beijing Medical Research 2021-8) and Capital Medical University Scientific Research Cultivation Fund (PYZ21033).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Endocrinology, Beijing Institute of Geriatrics, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100053, China

    Junling Fu, Lina Sun, Zhijing Mu & Shuangling Xiu

Authors
  1. Junling Fu
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  2. Lina Sun
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  3. Zhijing Mu
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  4. Shuangling Xiu
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Contributions

JLF analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; LNS and ZJM contributed to data collection; SLX contributed to the data interpretation, reviewed the manuscript and revised the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shuangling Xiu.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants and/or parents/guardians included in the study.

Research involving human participants and/or animals

Ethical approval: All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Fu, J., Sun, L., Mu, Z. et al. Free fatty acids are associated with muscle dysfunction in Chinese adults with type 2 diabetes. Endocrine 77, 41–47 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-022-03053-4

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