Impaired awareness of hypoglycemia in adults with type 1 diabetes is not associated with peripheral neuropathy

Objective:

The impaired awareness of hypoglycemia (IAH) affects people with type 1 diabetes and is a risk factor for severe hypoglycemia. This study aims to evaluate the association between the impaired awareness of Hypoglycemia by diabetes type 1 and the peripheral neuropathy (PNP).

Methods:

276 adults with type 1 diabetes, 135 men and 141 women, were studied from Mai 2015 to January 2016 to the outpatient department of University hospital of Jena. A cross sectional study was performed, using the Gold Score for assessing hypoglycemia awareness and the peripheral neuropathy was evaluated with the Neuropathy Symptoms Score (NSS) and the Neuropathy disability Score (NDS) from Young and Boulton.

Results:

The median age of the group was 51 ± 16 years with 23 ± 13 years diabetes duration. The BMI score was 27 ± 5 kg/m² and the DDCT adjusted HbA1c was 7.27%± 1.1. 85 patients had PNP and 80 had IAH. 27.6% of patients without PNP and 38.8% of patients with PNP had IAH (p = 0.067). The HbA1c didn't show any difference between the adults with and without IAH (7.1 vs. 7.3%; p = 0.121). The duration of diabetes was longer for the adults with IAH (31.34 vs. 26.95 y; p = 0.001). In the regression analysis, a significant association of the IAH to the diabetes duration (Exp(B)= 1.031; p = 0.007), but not to PNP (Exp(B)= 1.387; p = 0.284) or HbA1c (Exp(B)= 0.801; p = 0.115), is shown.

Conclusions:

This study revealed in adults with diabetes type 1 association between the diabetes duration and the IAH but not with the presence of PNP.