Objective: Diabetes increases the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) to a greater extent in women than in men. We investigated whether type 1 diabetic patients with short duration of disease and without complications have an altered oxidative status and whether there are differences between men and women.
Research Design And Methods: We investigated oxidative status in 29 control subjects and 37 patients with uncomplicated type 1 diabetes with duration of 6 +/- 3 years.
Patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) are well known to be at high risk of vascular disease, and dysfunction of vascular endothelium is considered as an early step in the development of diabetic complications. Because of the involvement of autoimmunity in the pathogenesis of IDDM, our aim was to assess, in 45 IDDM patients without clinically evident vascular complications, whether early signs of endothelial cell dysfunction were correlated to alterations of the immune system. IDDM patients were characterized by significantly increased serum levels of C-reactive protein, of polymorphonuclear cells-derived elastase, of endothelin-1 (ET-1) and of thrombomodulin, while plasma concentrations of fibronectin (FNT) were significantly decreased, with a statistically significant inverse correlation between ET-1 and FNT values.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiabetes Metab Res Rev
August 2000
Background: It is known that patients with renal failure have normochromic normocytic anemia due to impaired endogenous erythropoietin (EPO) synthesis. The aim of this work was to determine whether low serum erythropoietin (s-EPO) levels play a role in the pathogenesis of anemia in patients with Type 1 diabetes without overt nephropathy.
Methods: We included in the study 13 patients with Type 1 diabetes whose Hb levels were <11 g/dl.