About the study design and sampling methods had identified and provided by the Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan
(NAHSIT) [13]. In this study, the database had obtained the agreement from all subjects to link to the Taiwan National
Health Insurance Research Database.
We identified all subjects with a diagnosis of diabetes (including ICD-9-CM = 250 for Outpatient department visits ≥ 2 or admission ≥ 1 during 2004–2005) and non-chronic kidney disease (excluded were ICD-9-CM = 580–589 and 250.4 for Outpatient department visits ≥ 2 or admission ≥ 1 during 2004–2005) in the ICD-9-CM coding system during the study period from 2006/01/01 to 2007/12/31.
The effect of medications for hypertension and dyslipidemia were also considered.