{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T05:04:24Z","timestamp":1789535064900,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":36,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789516800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100020207","name":"Health Commission of Sichuan Province","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100020207","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Endocrinol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Albumin-corrected fructosamine (AlbF) is a short-term glycemic marker that can substitute for HbA1c when HbA1c is unreliable. Studies have linked AlbF to diabetic retinopathy (DR), but it is not known whether the dose-response curve differs between men and women. We investigated this in 1,090 type 2 diabetes patients (433 men, 657 women) from a single Chinese center.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Restricted cubic splines were used to model the AlbF-DR relationship separately by sex, with threshold identification via segmented logistic regression. Models included age, BMI, diabetes duration, systolic blood pressure, HbA1c, HDL-C, and medications as covariates.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Each 10 \u03bcmol\/g increase in AlbF raised DR risk in both sexes: men OR 1.83 (95% CI 1.39\u20132.41), women OR 1.58 (95% CI 1.26\u20131.99). The RCS curves told a different story. Men followed a linear pattern (P for nonlinearity = 0.751). Women showed a threshold near 62.0 \u03bcmol\/g (P for nonlinearity &amp;lt; 0.001). Below that value, the OR was 2.57 (95% CI 1.74\u20133.81); above it, the association was no longer significant (OR 1.29, 95% CI 0.69\u20132.42; P for interaction &amp;lt; 0.001). Sensitivity analyses consistently reproduced this nonlinear pattern.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The AlbF-DR relationship is linear in men but follows a threshold model in women, with a change point near 62.0 \u03bcmol\/g. Sex-specific risk modeling may improve DR stratification. Whether the threshold holds in practice will require prospective studies.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fendo.2026.1935387","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T04:31:29Z","timestamp":1789533089000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Sex-specific threshold effect of albumin-corrected fructosamine on diabetic retinopathy: a nonlinear relationship in women but linear in men \u2014 a cross-sectional study"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Qiyun","family":"Long","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Ziyang Central Hospital","place":["Ziyang, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shuang","family":"Kang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Ziyang Central 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