Monocyte-to-HDL cholesterol ratio helps assess vascular health in T2DM patients

A recent cross-sectional study published in Journal of Diabetes Research unveiled a potential link between the monocyte-to-HDL cholesterol ratio (MHR) and endothelial function. The study explored how MHR could serve as a biomarker for assessing vascular health in individuals with Type 2 Diabetes (T2DM).

This study involved a total of 243 patients who were diagnosed with T2DM and were categorized into a group with non-endothelial dysfunction and another with endothelial dysfunction based on flow-mediated dilation (FMD) quintiles. The findings indicated that endothelial dysfunction was prevalent in 79% of patients. Also, individuals with endothelial dysfunction expressed higher MHR levels than their counterparts without this dysfunction. The results demonstrated a significant positive correlation with this association persisting even after adjusting for various confounding factors, such as age, BMI, disease course, hypertension, smoking and drinking.

Logistic regression further emphasized MHR as an independent contributor to endothelial dysfunction. This data suggested that the risk of endothelial dysfunction increased by 61% with each SD increase in MHR, thereby, highlighting the potential clinical significance of this ratio.

Even after additional adjustments for factors like sex, HbA1c, HOMA-IR, C-reactive protein, and TG, MHR retained its association with endothelial dysfunction. The robustness of these results indicates the resilience of MHR as a potential marker, unaffected by several variables that often complicate medical analyses.

After employing a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve to assess its predictive power, an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.60 was revealed. This AUC suggests that MHR could serve as a reasonably effective predictor of endothelial dysfunction in T2DM patients. This study suggests that MHR may be an independent biomarker for evaluating vascular endothelial function in individuals with Type 2 Diabetes.

Reference:

Zhang, H., Lu, J., Gao, J., Sha, W., Cai, X., Rouzi, M. R. Y. M., Xu, Y., Tang, W., & Lei, T. (2024). Association of monocyte-to-HDL cholesterol ratio with endothelial dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes. Journal of Diabetes Research, 2024, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1155/2024/5287580