[The effect of gemfibrozil on serum apo C II and C III in diabetic hyperlipidemia]

The effects of gemfibrozil on apolipoproteins C II and C III (apo C II, C III) were observed in 20 NIDDM hyperlipidemic patients. All of the patients continued their anti-diabetic treatment, gemfibrozil 900 mg/day for 4 weeks. The results revealed no significant change in fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and HbA1 before and after the study. But after the treatment with gemfibrozil, the following parameters changed significantly: total cholesterol (TC) decreased by 18.64% (P less than 0.01), total triglyceride (TG) decreased by 65.05% (P less than 0.001), VLDL-C decreased by 63.19% (P less than 0.001), HDL-C increased by 44.23% (P less than 0.001), apo C III decreased by 31.38% (P less than 0.02), and the ratio of apo C III/C II reduced by 35.49% (P less than 0.01). These findings suggest that gemfibrozil has excellent effect on decreasing apo C III and the ratio of apo C III/C II, thus facilitates the metabolism of chylomicron and decreases TG level in hyperlipidemic diabetic patients.