Study on the correlation between the level of insulin resistance and changes in the degree of cerebral atherosclerosis in non-diabetic patients

BACKGROUND: Cerebral infarction is a health problem of global concern and brings a particular burden to medical treatment. OBJECTIVE: To analyze the correlation between insulin resistance (IR) levels and changes in cerebral atherosclerosis (AS) degree in non-diabetic patients with cerebral infarction. METHODS: A total of 134 non-diabetic patients with cerebral infarction who visited the Department of Neurology of our hospital from May 2019 to October 2020 were selected and underwent MRA/CTA (Magnetic resonance angiography/Computed tomography angiography) of cerebral arteries to refine the cerebrovascular imaging data, and according to the results of cerebral AS load, the patients were divided into mild AS group and severe AS group, and the insulin resistance index was calculated with HOMA-IR (homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance) to evaluate the IR level and HOMA-IR was compared between the two groups. Spearman correlation was used to analyze the correlation between the levels of IR in patients and the changes in cerebral AS load. RESULTS: 54 individuals had severe AS and 80 patients had mild AS, according to an MRA/CTA of the cerebral arteries. There was a significant difference (P <0.05) in HOMA-IR between the difficult and gentle AS groups. A significant link between HOMA-IR and the severity of cerebral AS in patients was found using Spearman correlation analysis (r = 0.850, P <0.05). CONCLUSION: The IR phenomenon was prevalent in non-diabetic patients with cerebral infarction, and the level of IR was closely related to the severity of cerebral AS.