Association of neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in US adults with diabetes and prediabetes: a prospective cohort study

The neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a novel hematological parameter to assess systemic inflammation. Prior investigations have indicated that an increased NLR may serve as a potential marker for pathological states such as cancer and atherosclerosis. However, there exists a dearth of research investigating the correlation between NLR levels and mortality in individuals with diabetes and prediabetes. Consequently, this study aims to examine the connection between NLR and all-cause as well as cardiovascular mortality in the population of the United States (US) with hyperglycemia status. Data were collected from a total of 20,270 eligible individuals enrolled for analysis, spanning ten cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 1999 to 2018. The subjects were categorized into three groups based on tertiles of NLR levels. The association of NLR with both all-cause and cardiovascular mortality was evaluated using Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox proportional hazards regression models. Restricted cubic splines were used to visualize the nonlinear relationship between NLR levels and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in subjects with diabetes after accounting for all relevant factors. Over a median follow-up period of 8.6 years, a total of 1909 subjects with diabetes died, with 671 deaths attributed to cardiovascular disease (CVD). And over a period of 8.46 years, 1974 subjects with prediabetes died, with 616 cases due to CVD. The multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) comparing high to low tertile of NLR in diabetes subjects were found to be 1.37 (95