Table 3 Key findings of the studies assessing the association between skin AGEs and DPN

1. Accumulation of skin AGEs is unanimously associated with DPN [36,37,38] and with diabetic foot ulceration [40, 41]

2. Increasing sAF levels predict the development of impendent DPN [22, 31, 38]

3. Evidence supports that the increase in skin AGEs may precede small-fibre sudomotor dysfunction [31] and altered vibration perception threshold [40, 41]

4. Important limitations of  published studies include: populations with different diabetes types; application of varying definitions for DPN diagnosis; divergent implementation of sAF cut-off values

5. Future studies are eagerly anticipated to clarify important issues, namely improvement in DN as a result of AGEs screening and the cost-effectiveness of the latter