Blood Metabolic Biomarkers of Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 in Aged Adults Determined by a UPLC-MS Metabolomic Approach

Background/Objectives: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a metabolic disease whose importance rises with aging, though it is also looming large in younger populations due to increasing obesity. Its effects may damage renal and heart functioning. Plasma biomarkers of T2DM have been shown through metabolomic studies under different conditions, mainly obesity, but untargeted metabolomic studies on T2DM are lacking for elderly people. Methods: A UPLC-MS-based metabolomic approach was conducted to ascertain potential plasma biomarkers in a cohort older than 65 years. Results: The dipeptide Gly-His, along with diverse lysophosphatidylcholines (LPCs), mainly LPC(14:0) and LPC(20:4), and three gangliosides were found to have different plasma content in T2DM subjects compared to control (non-diabetic) subjects (NT2DM). LPC(20:4) exhibited a gender dependence, with statistically significant differences only in females. Gly-His correlated with MEDAS-14, whereas LPC(14:0) correlated with sugar-rich food consumption. Conclusions: As previously demonstrated for other conditions, mainly obesity, altered lipid metabolism was shown in this study to be a hallmark of T2DM in elderly people also.