It was planned in this work to clarify the role ofendothelin and nitricoxide as markers ofendotheliummalfunction, which is a gate ofvascular complications in diabetesmellitus. In order to achieve this goal, this studywas carried out on 75 subjects. 60 ofthem were diabetic patients, classi fied into 2 groups. Group I consisted of35 non-insulin dependent diabetics with mean age of50.24 17.29 years including 18 males and 17fe males. Group II consisted of 25 insulin dependent diabetics with meanage of37.73 + 13.15 years including 14 males and 11 females. The rest 15 subjects were well cross-matched apparent healthy volunteers with mean age of 45.13 10.52 years including 9 males and 6females as a control group or group III. All subjects under study were subjected to a thorough history and clinical examination. Also, all subjects under study were subjected to laboratory investigations includingfasting and 2-hours post-prandial plasma glucose, glycated hemoglobin, urine analysisfor microalbumin, serum creatinine level, lipid pattern including total choleste rol, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol, plasma level ofen dothelin andplasma level ofnitric oxide. According to the results obtained from this study it was found that: There was a significant increase of plasma level ofendothelin and decrease ofplasma level ofnitric oxide in diabetic patients when compared to the control group. The changes in en dothelin and nitric oxide levels in diabetic patients were more obvious in the poor controlled diabetic patients. There was no significant difference in plasma level ofendothelin and nitric oxide between insulin-dependent diabetic patients and non-insulin-dependent diabetic patients. The clinical complications (as retinopathy. hypertension, nephropathy and periph-eral neuritis) became more severwith the increase inendothelinleveland with the decrease in nitric oxide level. |
