Serum Interleukin-18 Levels Are Increased and Closely Associated With Various Soluble Adhesion Molecule Levels in Type 1 Diabetic Patients
- Naoto Katakami, MD, PHD1,
- Hideaki Kaneto, MD, PHD1,
- Munehide Matsuhisa, MD, PHD1,
- Kazutomi Yoshiuchi, MD1,
- Ken Kato, MD1,
- Kaoru Yamamoto, MD1,
- Yutaka Umayahara, MD, PHD2,
- Keisuke Kosugi, MD, PHD2,
- Masatsugu Hori, MD, PHD1 and
- Yoshimitsu Yamasaki, MD, PHD1
- 1Department of Internal Medicine and Therapeutics, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan
- 2Department of Internal Medicine, Osaka Police Hospital, Osaka, Japan
- Address correspondence and reprint requests to Naoto Katakami, Department of Internal Medicine and Therapeutics (A8), Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-2, Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan. E-mail: katakami{at}medone.med.osaka-u.ac.jp
- hs-CRP, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein
- IL, interleukin
- sE-selectin, soluble E-selectin
- sICAM-1, soluble intracellular adhesion molecule-1
- sVCAM-1, soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1
Recent studies have shown that low-grade inflammation plays an important role in the development of diabetes vascular complications (1). Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is well known to play a key role in various inflammatory and autoimmune diseases (2). IL-18 produces proinflammatory cytokines and upregulates various adhesion molecule expression (3,4). These processes could lead to the development of diabetes vascular complications including atherosclerosis. Indeed, serum IL-18 levels can be a strong predictor of death in patients with cardiovascular diseases (5,6) and is associated with nephropathy and atherosclerosis in type 2 diabetic patients (7).
It was also reported (8) that serum IL-18 levels were increased during the early developing stage of type 1 diabetes, but we cannot exclude the possibility that these results were simply influenced by inflammation at the onset of type 1 diabetes. In this study, we examined serum IL-18 levels in the chronic stage of type 1 diabetes and the possible association between serum IL-18 and various soluble adhesion molecule levels.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—
A total of 77 Japanese type 1 diabetic patients (25 men and 52 women, mean ± SD age 23.3 ± 4.4 years, duration of diabetes 13.2 ± …
