Overview
- Researchers profiled whole blood from 52 volunteers at Osmania General Hospital in Hyderabad between June 2021 and July 2022, spanning healthy controls, type 2 diabetes, and diabetic kidney disease.
- Using LC-MS and GC-MS to survey nearly 300 metabolites, the team found 26 that differed between diabetic patients and healthy individuals, including newly linked molecules such as valerobetaine, ribothymidine, and fructosyl-pyroglutamate.
- Seven metabolites rose progressively from healthy to diabetes to diabetic kidney disease, including arabitol, myo-inositol, ribothymidine, and 2PY, pointing to potential early-warning markers of kidney damage.
- The study emphasizes whole-blood analysis over plasma or serum alone, and the researchers say the approach could be adapted to simple dried-blood-spot tests for broader access.
- Authors report two metabolic subgroups within the diabetes cohort that could inform treatment intensity, and they plan larger, more diverse studies to develop and validate clinical assays.