Evaluation of antioxidants and antioxidant capacity among Bangladeshi patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the leading causes of mortality and reduced life expectancy both worldwide and in Bangladesh. This cross-sectional study investigated the prevalence of Type 2 DM (T2DM) among Bangladeshi adult, and evaluated the status of antioxidant defense biomarkers and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) against an apparently healthy non-diabetic control group.A total of 158 participants, aged 20-50 years, were enrolled of whom 100 were T2DM patients and 58 were non-diabetic controls. Certain antioxidant biomarkers and the ferric-reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) were assayed by the standard procedures. In this study, the age at the first diagnosis of T2DM was 20-30 years in 24% of the patients. The fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and family history of diabetes were significantly higher in patients. The antioxidants - reduced glutathione, ascorbic acid and total thiol were significantly lower in patients (7.36±2.89 µM, 0.49±0.21 mg/dL, and 323.7±132.7 µM, respectively) than controls (10.233.13 µM, 0.66±0.20 mg/dL and 472.7±61.5 µM, respectively). The FRAP, a measure of TAC, was found to be significantly lower in patients. The activities of paraoxonase-1 (410.9±47.08 U/L) and superoxide dismutase (3.12±2.40 U/mL) were significantly lower while glutathione peroxidase (97.93±27.38 U/mL) and catalase (65.97±33.39 U/mL) were significantly higher than in controls. A significant negative correlation was found between FPG and FRAP in patients. A high prevalence of T2DM was found among young people. The overall findings suggested lower antioxidants enabled high levels of oxidative stress leading to the development of T2DM in young people.