Platelet functional activity in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Platelet aggregability and the reaction of isolation of thrombocytic granules were studied in 17 patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus with and without vascular involvement over the course of therapy with human insulin preparations (Lilly, France). Platelet aggregation in response to low concentrations of ADP and adrenalin was found increased; in patients with angiopathies no changes were induced by 5 mcM of ADP and collagen. In the patients without vascular involvement platelet aggregation was the same as in donors. The content of ATP released in the course of ADP or collagen-included aggregation reduced in the diabetics in comparison with donors irrespective of the presence of vascular complications, the lower level of ATP observed, however, in the patients without angiopathies. Our data indicate platelet hyperactivation and devastation of platelet granules in uncomplicated diabetes mellitus. Therapy with Lilly insulins was conducive to recovery of the functional activity of platelets which normalized 6 weeks after therapy was started, no matter what types of insulin were administered. The detected changes seem to be largely due to the effects of insulins proper but not so much to the compensation of glucose level, because they were unidirectional in the groups of patients with subcompensated and compensated diabetes.