Non-invasive measures of tissue autofluorescence are increased in Type 1 diabetes complications and correlate with a non-invasive measure of vascular dysfunction

Diabet. Med. 29, 726–733 (2012) Objective To determine if ocular and skin autofluorescence, reflecting advanced glycation end‐products, and vascular stiffness correlate in non‐diabetic and Type 1 diabetic subjects and if levels differ by diabetes status. Research design and methods Patients with Type 1 diabetes (n = 69, 19 with and 50 without vascular complications) and 60 subjects without diabetes (control) had ocular and skin autofluorescence and pulse‐wave analysis performed in the fasted state. Correlations between measures within groups used the Pearson or Spearman correlation‐coefficient and measures between groups were compared by anova. Results Lens and skin autofluorescence correlated in control (r = 0.58, P = 0.0001) and in Type 1 diabetes (r = 0.53, P = 0.001). Corneal autofluorescence correlated with lens (r = 0.53, r = 0.52, P = 0.0001) and skin autofluorescence (r = 0.34, P = 0.01 and r = 0.49, P = 0.00001) in control and Type 1 diabetes respectively. In Type 1 diabetes, small and large artery elasticity correlated inversely and systemic vascular resistance correlated positively with skin autofluorescence (all P = 0.001), and with lens and corneal autofluorescence (all P