Glycemic control, hand activity, and complexity of biological signals in diabetes mellitus (Q1688056)

Summary: Both glycemic control and handgrip strength affect microvascular function. MultiScale Entropy (MSE) of PhotoPlethysmoGraphic (PPG) pulse amplitudes may differ by diabetes status and hand activity. Of a middle-to-old aged and right-handed cohort without clinical cardiovascular disease, we controlled age, sex, and weight to select the unaffected (no type 2 diabetes, \(n = 36)\), the well-controlled diabetes (\(\mathrm{HbA1c} < 8\)\%, \(n = 22\)), and the poorly controlled diabetes (\(\mathrm{HbA1c} \geq 8\)\%, \(n = 22\)) groups. MSEs are calculated from consecutive 1,500\ PPG pulse amplitudes of bilateral index fingertips. The small-, medium-, and large-scale MSEs were defined as the average of scale 1 (\(\mathrm{MSE}_1\)), scales 2--4 (\(\mathrm{MSE}_{2 - 4}\)), and scales 5--10 (\(\mathrm{MSE}_{5 - 10}\)), respectively. Intra- and intergroups are compared by one- and two-sample \(t\)-tests, respectively. The dominant hand \(\mathrm{MSE}_{5 - 10}\) is lower in the poorly controlled diabetes group than the well-controlled diabetes and the unaffected (1.28 versus 1.52 and 1.56, \(p = 0.019\) and 0.001, resp.) groups, whereas the nondominant hand \(\mathrm{MSE}_{5 - 10}\) is lower in the well- and poorly controlled diabetes groups than the unaffected group (1.35 and 1.29 versus 1.58, \(p = 0.00 8\) and 0.005, resp.). The \(\mathrm{MSE}_1\) of dominant hand is higher than that of nondominant hand in the well-controlled diabetes (1.35 versus 1.10, \(p = 0.048\)). In conclusion, diabetes status and hand dominance may affect the MSE of PPG pulse amplitudes.