on behalf of the FinnDiane Study Group* OBJECTIVE-Poor glycemic control, elevated triglycerides, and albuminuria are associated with vascular complications in diabetes. However, few studies have investigated combined associations between metabolic markers, diabetic kidney disease, retinopathy, hypertension, obesity, and mortality. Here, the goal was to reveal previously undetected association patterns between clinical diagnoses and biochemistry in the FinnDiane dataset.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS-At baseline, clinical records, serum, and 24-h urine samples of 2,173 men and 2,024 women with type 1 diabetes were collected. The data were analyzed by the self-organizing map, which is an unsupervised pattern recognition algorithm that produces a two-dimensional layout of the patients based on their multivariate biochemical profiles. At follow-up, the results were compared against allcause mortality during 6.5 years (295 deaths).
RESULTS-The highest mortality was associated with advanced kidney disease. Other risk factors included 1) a profile of insulin resistance, abdominal obesity, high cholesterol, triglycerides, and low HDL 2 cholesterol, and 2) high adiponectin and high LDL cholesterol for older patients. The highest population-adjusted risk of death was 10.1-fold (95% CI 7.3-13.1) for men and 10.7-fold (7.9 -13.7) for women. Nonsignificant risk was observed for a profile with good glycemic control and high HDL 2 cholesterol and for a low cholesterol profile with a short diabetes duration.CONCLUSIONS-The self-organizing map analysis enabled detailed risk estimates, described the associations between known risk factors and complications, and uncovered statistical patterns difficult to detect by classical methods. The results also suggest that diabetes per se, without an adverse metabolic phenotype, does not contribute to increased mortality. Diabetes 57:2480-2487, 2008 P atients with type 1 diabetes are susceptible to severe microvascular complications such as proliferative retinopathy and chronic kidney disease, which are often accompanied by cardiovascular disease and premature death (1,2). Currently, the risk assessment and diagnostics rely on the urine albumin excretion, serum creatinine, and lipid profile (3,4). In many cases, however, the biochemical measurements are treated as independent factors without explicit attention to the overall metabolic imbalance behind the complications. Although the risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes complications have been verified statistically in large clinical studies (5-7), the overall picture on the mutual relationships and their relevance for risk assessment remains fragmented.The metabolic syndrome (8) is one attempt to describe the co-occurrence of vascular complications and insulin resistance, but so far its applicability to type 1 diabetes and its exact definition remain controversial (9,10). Moreover, gradually developing conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, do not present a physiologically clear border between health and disease, so quanti...