Subjects with NGT were recruited from the Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study carried out on a representative population of Chennai, South India. All subjects had fasting plasma glucose < 100 mg/dl (5.6 mmol/l) and 2-h post load plasma glucose < 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/l). HbA1c was measured using the Biorad Variant machine. CIMT was measured on the right common carotid artery using high-resolution B-mode ultrasonography.
The study group included 1383 NGT subjects, of whom 760 (54.9 % ) were women. The mean CIMT value in the 1st quartile of HbA1c (< 5.2 % ) was 0.65 and it increased significantly to 0.73 in the last quartile of HbA1c (> 5.8) (p < 0.001). Regression analysis showed that HbA1c had a strong association with CIMT after adjusting for age, gender, waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, serum triglycerides, HOMA-IR and smoking (? - 0.046, p = 0.047).
Even among subjects with NGT, there is a significant increase in CIMT with increasing levels of HbA1c, showing the value of using HbA1c for diagnosis of glucose intolerance.