Serum interleukin-18 levels are increased and closely associated with various soluble adhesion molecule levels in type 1 diabetic patients.

摘要

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.