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Fetuin-A and adiponectin are inflammatory cytokines associated with obesity and insulin resistance. This study aimed to examine the fetuin-A-to-adiponectin ratio (FAR) in diabetic children and to determine the role of FAR. A total of 54 children and adolescents with diabetes mellitus (DM) and 44 controls aged 9–16 years were included in this study. Clinical characteristics, including plasma fetuin-A and adiponectin levels, were compared with respect to body mass index (BMI) and diabetes type. Of 98 children, 54.1% were obese, whereas 18.4% were obese and diabetic. FAR was higher in obese children with DM than in non-obese children and also in type 2 DM children than in type 1. FAR showed a stronger association with BMI than with fetuin-A and adiponectin individually, and its association was more prominent in diabetic children than in controls. BMI was a risk factor for increased FAR. Plasma fetuin-A was elevated in obese children, and its association with insulin resistance and β cell function seemed more prominent in diabetic children after adjustment for adiponectin. Thus, FAR could be a useful surrogate for the early detection of childhood metabolic complications in diabetic children, particularly those who are obese.

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a serious microvascular complication in childhood diabetes and microalbuminuria has been a solid indicator in the assessment of DN. Nevertheless, renal injury may still occur in the presence of normoalbuminuria (NA) and various tubular injury biomarkers have been proposed to assess such damage. This case-controlled study aimed to evaluate plasma and urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin and kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) levels in diabetic children particularly in those with normo- and high-NA stages and determine their role in predicting DN. Fifty-four children/adolescents with type 1 and 2 diabetes and forty-four controls aged 7–18 years were included. The baseline clinical and laboratory characteristics including plasma and urinary biomarkers were compared. The plasma KIM-1 levels were significantly higher in diabetic children than in the controls and in high-NA children than normo-NA children. Glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) was identified as a significant risk factor for increased plasma KIM-1. The optimal cutoff for HbA1c when the plasma KIM-1 was > 23.10 pg/mL was 6.75% with an area under the curve of 0.77. For diabetic children with mildly increased albuminuria, the plasma KIM-1 complementary to MA may help increase the yield of detecting DN. Our findings also suggested an HbA1c cutoff of 6.75% correlated with increased plasma KIM-1.