Dietary arachidonic acid supplementation increases thromboxane synthesizing activity in platelets from diabetics

Thromboxane A2 has been implicated in thrombotic vascular diseases. The diabetic population has a high incidence of vascular complications. In the present study, activity of thromboxane synthetase in platelets of type 2 (non-insulin dependent) diabetic patients was studied. Thromboxane synthesizing activity in diabetic platelets was significantly higher than that in controls (p less than 0.05). An effect of dietary arachidonic acid on thromboxane synthesizing activity in platelets was also studied. Dietary arachidonic acid supplementation containing 1.7g of arachidonic acid per day for 1 week caused a significant increase of arachidonic acid content in plasma total lipids (p less than 0.05), but the increase of arachidonic acid in plasma total lipids did not correlate with the level of arachidonic acid in platelet phospholipids. Thromboxane synthesizing activity in platelets from the diabetics and the controls was augmented by a diet enriched in arachidonic acid from 2.20 +/- 0.15 to 2.56 +/- 0.20 and from 1.71 +/- 0.23 to 2.01 +/- 0.34, respectively. The increase in diabetic subjects was statistically significant (p less than 0.05). These results suggest that fatty acids of dietary origin are important factors in development of thrombotic vascular diseases.