Type II DM confers a markedly increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in premenopausal women. One potentially significant contributor to increased CVD risk may be impaired fibrinolysis. Healthy premenopausal women appear to have the greatest fibrinolytic potential. Yet studies that have demonstrated impaired fibrinolysis in diabetic patients have included few women and have not controlled for hormonal status. We postulated that the fibrinolytic response to stasis in premenopausal diabetic women would be more impaired than that of age and weight matched diabetic men. Healthy, sedentary, non-smoking diabetic women, diabetic men and control women with no evidence of CVD were studied. Baseline euglobulin lysis time (ELT) was drawn prior to inflation of a blood pressure cuff to mean arterial pressure. At the end of the cuff induced 15-minute stasis period a repeat ELT was drawn. Women with diabetes demonstrated an impaired response to stasis. Specifically there was a smaller decrease in ELT in diabetic women compared to both diabetic men and control women*, P<0.05 difference between diabetic women and other groups, +, P<0.05 difference pre to post stasis. Data suggests that fibrinolytic impairment is more pronounced in diabetic women than diabetic men. The changes may indicate that premenopausal diabetic women have fibrinolytic potential similar to that of postmenopausal women. Future studies should explore the mechanisms of impairment and the theory that increased CVD risk in premenopausal women with diabetes may be related to this significant impairment fibrinolytic response to stasis.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 1065 publications
