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The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of, and risk factors for, diabetic neuropathy among Asian Indian type 2 diabetic subjects. Subjects were recruited from CURES, a population-based study conducted on a representative population of Chennai city in south India. Of the 1529 known diabetic [KD] subjects, 1382 participated in the study [response rate: 90.4%]; in addition, 354 newly detected diabetic [NDD] subjects were also randomly selected. Neuropathy was diagnosed if the vibratory perception threshold of the right great toe measured by biothesiometry (Biomedical Instrument Co., Newbury, Ohio, USA) was ≥25. Of the total of 1736 individuals, biothesiometry studies were performed in 1632 subjects (94.0% response rate). The overall prevalence of neuropathy was 11% [age-standardized-5.8%], while it was 12.2% [age-standardized-6.5%] and 10% [age-standardized-5.2%] in male and female subjects respectively. The prevalence of neuropathy was significantly higher among KD subjects compared to NDD subjects [12.1% vs 6.8%, p=0.006]. It was also higher among subjects with diabetic retinopathy [26.9% vs 16.9%, p=0.001] and proteinuria [9.6% vs 5.3%, p=0.019] compared to those without. There was a linear increase in the prevalence of neuropathy with increasing age among both genders [p<0.0001]. The odds ratio (OR) for neuropathy in subjects having duration of diabetes >15 years was 5.51 [95% confidence interval (CI): 3.04-10.01, p<0.0001]. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed age [OR: 1.16, 95% CI: 1.13-1.19, p<0.001], height [OR: 1.04, 95% CI: 1.01 -1.07, p=0.016] and fasting plasma glucose [OR: 1.00, 95% CI: 1.00 -1.01, p=0.001] to be significantly associated with neuropathy. Duration of diabetes showed an association with neuropathy but significance was lost when age was introduced into the model. This is the first population-based data on prevalence of diabetic neuropathy from India, which has the largest number of diabetic patients in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]