El polimorfismo inserción/deleción del gen de la enzima convertidora de angiotensina y su asociación con algunas complicaciones en pacientes con diabetes mellitus tipo 2

background: diabetes mellitus is a disease with serious repercussions on the costa rican population and it predisposes patients to diverse complications. the exact origin of these complications is not known; it has been suggested that certain polymorphisms are strongly associated with the appearance of some of them. aim: to determine if there is a relation between complications from diabetes and the insertion/deletion polymorphism of the angiotensin converting enzyme. methods: this investigation included 225 subjects. 109 were cases and 116 control subjects. a blood sample was taken from each participant and fibrinogen levels were measured; also, using a polymerase chain reaction of the intron 16 of the angiotensin converting enzyme gene, the insertion/deletion mutation of the angiotensin converting enzyme was studied. then, the results were compared to the presence of diabetes or its complications. results: a greater number of controls were found to have insertion/deletion polymorphism, however this was not considered statistically significant. in the case group, none of the polymorphisms showed a dominant behavior. d/d was associated with high levels of fibrinogen. conclusion: no strong association was found between the polymorphisms of the angiotensin converting enzyme and suffering from diabetes mellitus type 2 in the studied population. using a logistic regression analysis, it was determined that the polymorphism d/d is significant regarding the predisposition to develop diabetes, but it explains only 3,58% of this variable, therefore there are variables that have a greater significance. yet, elevated levels of fibrinogen are related with the polymorphism d/d. it can be established that in the studied population there is no relation between the polymorphisms of the angiotensin converting enzyme and the emergence of complications from diabetes.