Measurement of Lipid Peroxide Levels in Erythrocyte Ghosts from Patients with Various Diseases

By the method using a methylene blue derivative, we investigated the hydroperoxide (LPO) level of erythrocyte membranes (EG) in patients suffering from diabetes mellitus, hypertension, cerebral stroke, hypercholesterolemia, and ischemic heart disease. In addition, the correlation between the EG-LPO level and the clinical parameters was analyzed. The EG-LPO level registered 1.6±0.9nmol/mg protein in the healthy controls, whereas higher EG-LPO levels were obtained in the diabetic and the hypertensive patients. However, the EG-LPO in the hypercholesterolemic patients showed lower value than that in the diabetic, from which we would suggest the inhibitory effect of high cholesterol on lipid peroxidation. There was no correlation between the EG-LPO level and the clinical parameters. The lipid peroxide in the erythrocyte membrane would be supposed to be one of the independent vascular risk factors, and especially the high values of the EG-LPO in the diabetic and hypertensive patients might be related to the high incidence of vascular accidents in these diseases.