Abstract: Abstract：Objective To investigate the clinical value of neutrophil- lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in postmenopausal patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods A total of 128 newly diagnosed T2DM female patients were randomly recruited from the Zhujiang Hospital of Southern Medical University from March to September 2015. According to the physiological state, the patients were divided into menopausal group (n=66) and non- menopausal group (n=62). Fiftysix healthy females were chosen as the control group. The values of blood pressure, blood lipid, fasting plasma glucose (FPG), fasting insulin (FINS) and white blood count (WBC), neutrophil count, percentage of neutrophils， lymphocytes count, and percentage of lymphocytes were detected and compared between three groups. The NLR and the HOMA insulin resistance index (HOMA- IR) were calculated. Results Age, systolic blood pressure (SBP), triglyceride (TG), FINS, percentage of neutrophil, NLR, HOMA-IR were significantly higher in menopause group than those of control group and non-menopause group (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences in diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and FPG between menopause group and non- menopause group, but both were significantly higher than those of control group (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences in total cholesterol (TC), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL- C), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), WBC and HbA1c between three groups (P > 0.05). There was no linear correlation between NLR and HOMA- IR (rs=0.015, P > 0.05), HbA1c (r=0.030, P > 0.05). Conclusion NLR is of a certain significance in the assessment of inflammatory status and IR levels in postmenopausal women with T2DM, which may be related to the changes of autonomic nervous system.

Key words: diabetes mellitus, type 2, insulin resistance, postmenopause;autonomic nervous system, neutrophil- tolymphocyte ratio