Background: Oxidative stress has been implicated in the major complications of diabetes mellitus, including retinopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy and accelerated coronary artery disease. There is a clinical need for a marker of oxidative stress which could potentially identify diabetic patients at increased risk for these complications. We measured oxidative age, a new breath marker of oxidative stress, in diabetic patients.
Methods: Three groups were studied: type 1 diabetes mellitus (n=9), type 2 diabetes mellitus (n=53) and non-diabetic normals (n=39). Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in breath were assayed by gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy to construct the breath methylated alkane contour (BMAC), a three-dimensional display of oxidative stress markers, C4-C20 alkanes and monomethylated alkanes. The collective abundance of these VOCs was reduced to a single value, the oxidative age, comprising the volume under the curve of the BMAC corrected for chronological age.
Results: Oxidative age was significantly increased in type 1 diabetes (mean=0.103, S.E.M.=0.119, p<0.01) and type 2 diabetes (mean=0.103, S.E.M.=0.047, p<0.05) compared to age-matched normals (mean=-0.248, S.E.M.=0.079). No significant correlation between oxidative age and blood glucose or hemoglobin A1C was observed in either group.
Conclusions: Oxidative age, a marker of oxidative stress, was significantly increased in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Oxidative age merits further study as a candidate marker of risk for the complications of diabetes mellitus.
Copyright 2004 Elsevier B.V.