Relationship between anti-insulin antibodies and albuminuria or proteinuria in human insulin-treated type 2 diabetes mellitus

In order to examine the relationship between anti-insulin antibodies (AIA) caused by extrinsic human insulin and albuminuria or proteinuria, 53 human insulin-treated type 2 diabetics were divided into two groups: (AIA(+) grou p) 27 patients with a titer of AIA greater than 7.6% and (AIA(-) group) 26 patients with a titer of AIA less than 7.5%. Although no significant differ ence was found between the two groups for age, gender, body mass index, dur ation of diabetes, duration of insulin treatment, blood pressure, serum cre atinine, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), daily dose of insulin, daily insu lin injection times, or treatment of hypertension, the AIA(+) group had a s ignificantly higher urinary albumin to creatinine ratio and urinary protein to creatinine ratio than the AIA(-) group (p < 0.05). It is suggested that AIA in type I diabetics might be insulin autoantibodies, which is not the case with type 2 diabetics, To our knowledge this is the first study demons trating the relationship between AIA induced not by porcine or bovine insul in, but by human insulin and albuminuria or proteinuria in type 2 diabetics .