Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a hypercoagulable state and is associated with highly increased risk of\nvascular complications. In the theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), these vascular complications are\nclassified as blood stasis. Diagnosis of the tongue plays an important role in TCM; a bluish tongue, petechiae, and\nengorged sublingual collateral vessels are manifestations of blood stasis. This study aimed to characterize the\ntongue manifestations of blood stasis and derive a relationship between blood stasis and vascular disorders in\npatients with type 2 DM.\nMethod: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 140 patients with type 2 DM, and compared demography,\nlaboratory, physical examination, ankle brachial index(ABI), brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (ba-PWV), and tongue\nmanifestation datas. An automatic tongue diagnosis system was used to capture tongue images and characterize\nclinical tongue manifestations.\nResults: A bluish or petechiae tongue was assoicated with a significant decrease in high-density lipoprotein level,\nand bluish tongue was associated with significant increase in blood triglyceride in patients with type 2 DM. On\nassessing arterial stiffness, patients with a petechiae tongue had a higher ba-PWV for both sides (L:1938.41 �± 469.\n54 cm/sec v.s.1723.99 �± 302.16, p = 0.02; R:1937.28 �± 405.55 v.s.1741.99 �± 325.82, p = 0.03).\nConclusion: Blood stasis, particularly a tongue with petechiae, may be associated with arterial stiffness in patients\nwith type 2 DM. Furthermore, tongue diagnosis could detect blood stasis relevant to DM and could serve as a\nfeasible predictor for DM.
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