Blood platelet behaviour in patients with a type I diabetes mellitus

Platelets appear to be involved in the development of vascular diseases in diabetic patients. In a number of studies, platelet adhesion and aggregation has been found to be enhanced in diabetic patients indicating a platelet hyperreactivity. However, contradictory results on hyperreactivity of diabetic platelets towards agonists published in the literature leading to the problem of reliability of agonist-induced aggregation as a parameter which is able to reflect an altered platelet reactivity. Therefore, we introduced the quantification of actin filaments of platelets as an early indicator of platelet hyperreactivity. In 20 patients with type I diabetes mellitus agonist-induced aggregation, spontaneous aggregation, malondialdehyde (MDA)-formation, plasma lipid status and the ability of plasma to degrade platelet activating factor (PAF) as well as the G- to F-actin equilibrium of platelets were assayed. Compared to an age- and sex-matched control group F-actin values, spontaneous aggregation and PAF-hydrolase were significantly increased in diabetic patients.