The oxidative stress index in human population with arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus

Context: A clinical study was conducted in a cohort of human subjects from 60 to 75 years of age in order to assess the correlation between disease diagnosis and oxidative stress (OS) damage in diabetes mellitus (DM) and arterial hypertension (AHT). Aims: To provide a sound basis to design a clinical protocol for antioxidant adjuvant therapy for DM and AHT. Methods: The values of the OS index were determined from the experimental values of biomarkers in erythrocyte lysates obtained from human blood samples including total antioxidant levels, specific biomarkers of oxidative damage, and antioxidant enzyme activities. Three study groups were formed: Group I: DM patients (110 subjects), group II: AHT patients (112 subjects); and Control group: Healthy volunteers (123 subjects). The data of all groups were analyzed using SPSS 9.0 software. A nonparametric Friedman test was used to compare several related subgroups, and changes within the groups and subgroups were tested using the Wilcoxon paired test. A Mann-Whitney U test was used to estimate significant differences (p<0.05) between the subgroups. Results: Severe OS was observed in subgroup IIc (AHT III), moderate OS was observed in subgroups Ib (DM II) and IIb (AHT II), mild OS was observed in subgroup Ia (DM I), and no OS was observed in subgroup IIa (AHT I). Conclusions: The results support the possible design of clinical trial protocols for adjuvant antioxidant therapy in order to increase the efficacy of standard therapies for AHT II and III and for DM II. Antioxidant therapies for DM I and AHT I are not recommended due to the presence of only mild OS or no OS, respectively.