ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition and Metabolism
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1662140
This article is part of the Research TopicNutrient Metabolism and Complications of Type 2 Diabetes MellitusView all 19 articles
Sex-Specific Associations of the Controlling Nutritional Status Score with Diabetic Kidney Disease Among Chinese Individuals: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study
Provisionally accepted
- 1The First Affiliated Hospital of Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China
- 2Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background：Recognizing the crucial role of nutritional status in the advancement of diabetic complications, this investigation aimed to evaluate sex-specific disparities concerning the relationship between the Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) score and diabetic kidney disease (DKD). Methods：Data obtained from the First Affiliated Hospital of Yangtze University, spanning January 2022 to May 2024, were utilized. The CONUT score was determined utilizing serum albumin (ALB), total cholesterol (TC), and lymphocyte (LYM) count. Sex-specific correlations among CONUT scores and DKD were evaluated using multivariate logistic regression and restricted cubic splines (RCS). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was employed to ascertain the area under the curve (AUC) for the CONUT score in female participants. Subgroup analyses and interaction assessments were conducted to investigate the influence of the CONUT score within sex-specific subgroups. Results: A total of 1429 individuals were enrolled. Following adjustment for all covariates, women within the elevated CONUT score group exhibited a 66% augmented odds of DKD [OR=1.66 (95%CI: 1.08-2.58)]. RCS analysis indicated a linear positive correlation between the CONUT score and the odds of DKD in women (P-Nonlinear: 0.840). The AUC for the CONUT score in women was 0.700 (95%CI: 0.653-0.748), indicating its potential utility as a risk identification tool for DKD. Subgroup analyses revealed a noteworthy positive correlation between elevated CONUT scores and the odds of DKD among females aged ≥60 years, those with a high school diploma, who smoked, consumed alcohol, were not hypertensive, had hyperlipidemia or had a high TC/HDL ratio. Conclusion: This study demonstrates sex-specific disparities in the prevalence of DKD associated with elevated CONUT scores. These outcomes underscore the significance of individualized nutritional interventions for females at an elevated odds of DKD.
Keywords: Sex-specific differences, CONUT, DKD, Nutritional risk assessment, T2DM
Received: 08 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Han, Wang, Lin, Li and Ren. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Lin Li, The First Affiliated Hospital of Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China
Yan-Rui Ren, The First Affiliated Hospital of Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.