The aim of the present study was to investigate the correlation of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), mean platelet volume (MPV), and platelet distribution width (PDW) with diabetic nephropathy (DN) and diabetic retinopathy (DR). We searched for eligible studies from PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and CNKI up to 1 December 2017. Standardized mean difference (SMD) was calculated with a confidence interval (CI) of 95%. A total of 48 studies were included in our meta-analysis. Compared with patients with type Ⅱ diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and without DR, NLR, MPV, and PDW were higher in patients with DR (SMD = 0.77; 95% CI: 0.49–1.05; P<0.001; SMD = 0.68; 95% CI: 0.36–0.99; P<0.001; SMD = 0.52; 95% CI: 0.28–0.76; P<0.01). Compared with patients with T2DM and without DN, NLR, MPV, and PDW were higher in patients with DN (SMD = 0.63; 95% CI: 0.43–0.83; P<0.001; SMD = 0.81; 95% CI: 0.36–1.25; P<0.001; SMD = 0.70; 95% CI: 0.50–0.90; P<0.001). We also found that MPV was strongly associated with the severity of DR, and NLR was closely related to the degree of DN. Our findings indicated that NLR, MPV, and PDW could be recommended as inexpensive diagnostic biomarkers for DN and DR. However, considering several limitations in the present study, further high-quality clinical studies should be performed to investigate the relationship of NLR, MPV, and PDW to DN and DR.