Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Endothelial dysfunction may have deleterious effect cardiovascular pathology in diabetic patients.

Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) exerts beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system in part by exerting antioxidant activity. Recently it was reported that ANP is able to exert an antihypertrophic effect in myocitos at least in part due to inhibition of NADPH oxidase and superoxido generation.

It seems that hyperglucemia acute is accompanied by a rapid increase in circulating ANP and in this metabolic interaction, ANP might counteract the renal sodioum-retaining effect of hyperglucemia and hyperinsulinemia.

Given that oxidant stress is a key cause of endothelial dysfunction in diabetes we investigated whether there is a relation between ANP levels and the presence of vascular disease and his relation with the HbA1c.

Methods and patients: We analysed 21 diabetic patients, 8 woman and 13 men, with ages (X+DS) 61.3±12.6 and 8.4±9 years of diabetes evolution. Two were diabetic Type 1 and 19 type 2. The control group were 34 subjects. ET1 and ANF were measured by RIA.

Results: There were no statistically significant differences between ANP levels in the group of diabetic patients depending on the Hba1c group (ANP: 9.24±5.30 and 12.04±7.79 pg/ml in patients diabetic with HbA1c<9 y HbA1c>9% (NS).

However ANP levels was increased in the both groups of patients with diabetes without vascular disease compared with healthy controls (ANP: 5.84±3.96 pg/ml) P<0.05; r: 0.43.

Conclusion: ANP levels was increased significantly in diabetic patients without vascular disease compared to controls but not directly related to HbA1c levels.

Elevation of ANP levels may precede vascular complications associated with diabetes and offers a protective actions on endothelium-dependent and independent vasodilatation. This may represent new, more effective means of treating vascular disease specifically in the setting of diabetes.