Hypertension, poor glycemic control, and microalbuminuria in Cuban Americans with type 2 diabetes

Purpose: To investigate to what degree the presence of hypertension (HTN) and poor glycemic control (GC) influences the likelihood of having microalbuminuria (MAU) among Cuban Americans with type 2 diabetes (T2D).Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted in Cuban Americans (n = 179) with T2D. Participants were recruited from a randomly generated mailing list purchased from KnowledgeBase Marketing, Inc. Blood pressure (BP) was measured twice and averaged using an adult size cuff. Glycosylated hemoglobin (A1c) levels were measured from whole blood samples with the Roche Tina-quant method. First morning urine samples were collected from each participant to determine MAU by a semiquantitative assay (ImmunoDip).Results: MAU was present in 26% of Cuban Americans with T2D. A significantly higher percentage of subjects with MA had HTN (P = 0.038) and elevated A1C (P = 0.002) than those with normoalbuminuria. Logistic regression analysis showed that after controlling for covariates, subjects with poor GC were 6.76 times more likely to have MAU if they had hypertension compared with those without hypertension (P = 0.004; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.83, 23.05). Conclusion: The clinical significance of these findings emphasizes the early detection of MAU in this Hispanic subgroup combined with BP and good GC, which are fundamentals in preventing and treating diabetes complications and improving individuals’ renal and cardiovascular outcomes.

Intracranial Volume Estimation and Graph Theoretical Analysis of Brain Functional Connectivity Networks

Understanding pathways of neurological disorders requires extensive research on both functional and structural characteristics of the brain. This dissertation introduced two interrelated research endeavors, describing (1) a novel integrated approach for constructing functional connectivity networks (FCNs) of brain using non-invasive scalp EEG recordings; and (2) a decision aid for estimating intracranial volume (ICV). The approach in (1) was developed to study the alterations of networks in patients with pediatric epilepsy. Results demonstrated the existence of statistically significant (p