Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic illness caused by insulin resistance or lack of it. Hypertension (HT) has been seen frequently in diabetic patients, and causes morbidity and mortality with its complications. Salusins are vasodilator and hypotensive peptids which function most in cardiovascular system. Apelin is an insulin-sensitive, vasoconstructive, positive inotropic-effective peptide. In this study, determining the levels of serum salusin-α, salusin-β and apelin in diabetic and hypertensive patients as well as examining the relationship between diabetes mellitus and hypertension are aimed.

Methods: For this study, 36 patients with only diabetes, 41 patients with diabetes+hypertension, 32 patients with only hypertension, and 30 healthy controlled group are examined. In addition to regular blood tests, the levels of salusin-α, salusin-β, and apelin are also examined.

Results: The level of salusin-α was high in controlled group compared with HT and DM+HT groups (respectively, P<0.05, P<0.01). Although this level was high in DM group, it was not statistically significant. Compared with the control group salusin-β level was high in all groups, but it was not statistically significant (P=0.205). Compared with the control group, apelin level was low in DM group (P<0.05) but high in HT group, but not statistically significant. In DM+HT group, apelin level was similar as the control group.

Conclusion: As a result, salusin-α and salusin-β levels were observed to have increased in HT and DM+HT groups. The reason why these peptides increase is to decrease the arterial pressure. This may be a reply fort the cardioprotectivity. The reason why apelin level was low only in DM group may be due to fact that insulin level was low in diabetic group and apelin was an important mediator of glucose.