Diabetes-induced Alterations in HDL Subfractions Distribution

Diabetes mellitus (DM) due to its increasing prevalence and associated morbidity and mortality has become a serious public health problem. In DM, HDL may lose its beneficial features and become proatherogenic due to its altered biological activity thus increasing cardiovascular risk. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of the presence of diabetes mellitus type 2 and its duration on the distribution of HDL subfractions. Moreover, the effect of statin treatment on HDL subfraction share was analysed in this study.

The study group consisted of 50 patients with newly diagnosed DM and 50 persons with DM for longer than 10 years while the control group consisted of 50 healthy volunteers. HDL subfractions were analysed with the use of Lipoprint.

We demonstrated progressive worsening of heart functioning and impairment of its structure in the course of diabetes mellitus. Moreover, we observed that HDL-6 subfraction and intermediate HDL fraction are lowest in the group with advanced DMt2 compared to the group with newly diagnosed DM and a healthy control group. Finally, the results of our study indicated the effect of statin treatment on HDL subfractions that seems not to be advantageous.

It seems that in patients with diabetes mellitus compromised antiatherogenic properties of HDL, as a result of oxidative modification and glycation of the HDL protein as well as the transformation of the HDL proteome into a proinflammatory protein, increase cardiovascular risk.