Affiliations: [a] Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics, St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London W2, England | [b] Dept. of Clinical Pharmacology, St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London W2, England | [c] Dept. of Medicine, St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London W2, England
Note: [] Accepted by: Editor Y. Isogai
Abstract: There are many reports in the literature describing haemorheological disturbances associated with diabetes. However, the majority of these studies have concentrated on insulin-dependent, rather than non-insulin dependent diabetes (NIDD). Furthermore, very little attention has been given to the effect of associated hypertension which is a common feature of NIDD. In this study the rheological profiles of blood from 41 NIDD subjects with treated hypertension (HT), 31 normotensive NIDD subjects (NHT) and 12 non-diabetic controls (C) were studied. Differences in haematocrit failed to reach statistical significance. However, the plasma fibrinogen concentrations (mean ± SD) were significantly different between the groups (HT: 4.7 ± 1.0, NHT: 4.0 ± 0.7, C: 3.5 ± 0.6 g/l) and were reflected in the plasma viscosity (1.52 ± .15, 1.46 ± .06, 1.41 ± 0.6 mPas) and relative blood viscosity at low shear rate, 0.277 s−1, (38.1 ± 3.8, 35.9 ± 3.9, 32.9 ± 3.6). The rheological differences between the groups can be explained mainly in terms of the effects of altered fibrinogen concentration.
