Association between lipocalin-2 levels and diabetic retinopathy in patients with overweight/obese type 2 diabetes mellitus

Aims The study aimed to investigate the association between lipocalin-2 (LCN-2) levels and diabetic retinopathy (DR) in patients with overweight/obese type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM), and to explore the mechanism of LCN-2 in overweight/obese DR. Methods The study involved 237 T2DM inpatients divided into the normal group and overweight/obese group, and the two groups were further divided into two subgroups according to the presence or absence of DR. The demographic data and biochemical parameters were measured. Results LCN-2 levels in overweight/obese groups were higher than those in normal groups ( P < 0.001 for all), and patients with DR had higher levels of LCN-2 than those without DR( P < 0.05 for all) in normal groups and overweight/obese groups. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that no significant significance was observed for LCN-2 levels compared to those below the median in the normal group, but individuals with LCN-2 levels above the median had 4.198 times higher risk of developing DR than those below the median (OR = 4.198, 95% CI = 1.676–10.516) after adjustment for potential confounding factors in the overweight/obese group. In the total, normal and overweight/obese groups, the prediction capacity of LCN-2 for DR was 1.56, 1.58 and 1.65 times, respectively. Conclusionsː In conclusion, our study found that LCN-2 levels were higher in overweight/obese patients with DR, and LCN-2 was an independent predictor of DR in T2DM patients with overweight/obese. In addition, LCN-2 may be a valuable predictor of DR-like factors such as the duration of diabetes and hypertension.