Lipid peroxide levels of serum lipoprotein fractions of diabetic patients

The elevation of lipid peroxide level has been considered as a cause of the degeneration of organs or tissues (1–6). It was also considered that the lipid peroxide formed in the primary site would be transferred via blood to other organs or tissues where the damage would be provoked by the propagation of lipid peroxidation (7,8). Recently, it was reported from our laboratory that plasma lipid peroxide levels of diabetic patients were significantly higher than those of control subjects and that the levels in diabetics with angiopathy were markedly higher than those in diabetics without angiopathy (9). From these results, we suspected that a high level of lipid peroxide in plasma would be, at least partly, the cause of angiopathy in patients suffering from diabetes, and that it would be worthwhile to obtain further information on the lipid peroxides of blood plasma of diabetic patients. The present paper deals with the lipid peroxide levels of serum lipoprotein fractions of diabetic patients examined in relation to some abnormal features of lipid metabolism.