Study of hemorheological parameters in maturity onset diabetic cases

Abstract

Freshly detected diabetic (maturity-onset) cases were studied for their hemorheological parameters before starting the treatment. The parameters studied were, whole blood viscosity, plasma viscosity, red cell rigidity, red cell aggregation, hematocrit and fibrinogen. All the parameters were significantly altered. Plasma viscosity, whole blood viscosity and red cell rigidity showed increase with very high level of significance (<0.005) as compared to that of normal controls. Hematocrit was significantly increased, Rheological parameters rise even if the fasting blood sugar is around 180 mg/100 ml which is in variance with Dintenfass and Davis (1). It may be due to the absence of any antidiabetic treatment or since the disease is recently diagnosed the correction of impaired autoregulation has yet to start in the body. Diabetes starts affecting the body as soon as it gets diagnosed or may be even before that and hemorheological changes precede the microangiopathy that appears to show the cause effect relationship between hemorheological changes and microangiopathy respectively.