الفهرس 
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Abstract
The aim of this study was to show the relation between plasma apelin levels and periphral neuropathy in asample of type 2 diabetic patients. All consecutive diabetic patients who presented for routine follow-up at our outpatient clinic were invited to participate in this clinical study. 60 diabetic patients(30with neuropathy and 30 without neuropathy) and 20 non-diabetic control subjects were included in the study. Neurological evaluations in diabetic subjects were done by nerve conduction studies and evaluated with the clinical examination by tunning fork. Fasting plasma glucose, HbA1c, lipid and apelin levels were measured in each subject. Plasma apelin level washigher significantly higher on comparing the three studied groups (control subjects, diabetic patients with neuropathy and diabetic patients without neuropathy) as p < 0.001. Further, plasma apelin levels were found to be higher in diabetic patients with neuropathy when compared with diabetic patients without neuropathy and higher in diabetic patients without neuropathy when compared with healthy control subjects. In diabetic patients, plasma Apelin levels correlated significantly with diabetes duration(r = 0.5, p < 0.001), age(r = 0.4, p < 0.001) and BMI (r = 0.2, p = 0.035). We propose that apelin levels in diabetic patients are higher in the presence of neuropathy, longer disease duration, advanced age and BMI. This drawing attention to the possible association between the apelinergic system and diabetic peripheral neuropathy. We believe that further studies with larger samples and include investigations for the presence of retinopathy and nephropathy should be carried out.