Plasma and erythrocyte vitamin E levels in children with insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.

Vitamin E is considered to be one of the most important antioxidants. There is a trend today to supply diabetic children with vitamin E in order to prevent microvascular complications. In this study, our objective was to demonstrate validity of plasma and erythrocyte vitamin E levels in diabetic children. This study was conducted on twenty-five diabetic patients aged from 7-16 years and ten non-diabetic, age-matched healthy subjects as the control group. Vitamin E levels were measured by high-performance liquid chromatography. There was no significant difference between the mean plasma vitamin E levels of diabetic and control groups, 870.80 +/- 220.51 micrograms/dl and 891 +/- 221.21 micrograms/dl, respectively (p > 0.05). The mean erythrocyte vitamin E levels of diabetic and control groups were significantly different: 183.12 +/- 62.58 micrograms/dl and 246.90 +/- 68.26 micrograms/dl, respectively (p < 0.05). Erythrocyte vitamin E levels were significantly lower than plasma vitamin E levels in both groups. We further investigated whether a correlation exists between plasma and erythrocyte vitamin E levels and duration of diabetes, insulin dose and HbA1c measurements. However no correlation was found. In conclusion, measurement of erythrocyte vitamin E levels may be considered to be more valuable than plasma vitamin E levels in diabetic children and supplementation may be provided according to erythrocyte levels rather than plasma levels.