Medical hypothesis: cardiovascular complications of diabetes mellitus-from glucose to insulin and back.

Vascular complications such as atheroma, hypertension and macroangiopathy are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in diabetic patients. Epidemiological and clinical data linking hyperinsulinaemia to both hypertension and atherosclerosis are inconsistent. Hyperglycaemia is the distinguishing feature of diabetes and it seems a likely candidate for the poor cardiovascular outlook of diabetic patients. High blood glucose levels cause selective impairment of endothelium-dependent relaxation and delay cell replication time of cultured human endothelial cells. These effects of hyperglycaemia are reversed by a number of antioxidants, including superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione. Impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilation has been reported both in Type 1 and Type 2 diabetic patient. The evidence for a role of oxygen-derived free radicals in the pathogenesis of vascular diabetic complications can be summarized as follows: 1) glucose can auto-oxidize generating oxygen derived free radicals; 2) elevated levels of oxygen derived free radicals are found in red blood cells, plasma and retina of diabetic animals and patients, and correlate with metabolic control; 3) endogenous antioxidants are all decreased in diabetic tissues and blood; and 4) treatment with different antioxidants may improve many of the metabolic abnormalities reported to occur in diabetic patients. The use of antioxidants to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease in diabetes should await the results of randomized trials with these drugs in the primary and secondary prevention of coronary disease.