Plasma fatty acid metabolic profiling coupled with clinical research reveals the risk factors for atherosclerosis development in type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Many publications have reported that the incidence of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases is higher in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) than in the non-diabetic population; however, until now, the reason has been unclear. In this study, 25 males (25/64, 39.06%) and 19 females (19/54, 35.19%) had complications with atherosclerosis after two years. To reveal the risk factors for developing atherosclerosis in patients with T2DM, plasma fatty acid metabolic profiling based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was combined with the analysis of clinical biochemical indices. The results of partial least squares-discriminant and canonical correlation analyses suggested that C20:0, C22:6n-3, glycosylated hemoglobin, waist circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio are likely to be closely related to T2DM complicated with atherosclerosis. Metabolomic information is a beneficial supplement to existing clinical indices and is useful in predicting the development of a patient's disease and optimizing the treatment.