The lipid metabolism of the arterial wall and its abnormalities in diabetes.

Arteries are not simply conduits for the transport of blood, but consist of metabolically active tissue which has the capacity to synthesize all the components of the atherosclerotic lesion. The smooth muscle cell appears to be the most important metabolically active cell in the arterial wall. There is little information on arterial metabolism in human diabetes. Experimental diabetes depressed all aspects of arterial lipid metabolism and this effect is reversed by insulin. Insulin promotes changes in arterial metabolism which are similar to those an atherosclerosis. Thus the relationship of human diabetes to the metabolism of the arterial wall is complex and little understood.