RESUMEN
This work was designed to study the activity of antioxidant enzymes [Superoxide Dismutase [SOD] and catalase [CAT]] with regard to the blood level of glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin [GHA1c] and duration of disease in insulin dependent diabetes mellitus [IDDM]. A total of 24 insulin dependent diabetic children and 15 healthy control non diabetic children were investigated. Their ages ranged from 6-15 years. Age and weight had no significant effect on the GHA1c nor the antioxidant enzymes [SOD and CAT]. But our results showed that there was a highly statistically significant decrease in SOD [142.2+35.7] and CAT [87.7 +40.1] of the group of IDDM when compared with the control group [SOD=194.8 + 18.8 and CAT = 137=28.5 P < 0.001]. These results showed a good negative correlation with the fasting blood sugar level but no statistical significant difference with GHA1C level Also the results of this study showed a good correlation between the antioxidant and the duration of the disease. And on studying the logistic regression we found that SOD is more significantly dependent and sensitive to the modal than the CAT. We conclude that the risk of the microangiopathy, which is the major cause of tissue damage disability and death in IDDM, appears to increase linear with the duration of diabetes, due to the positive correlation between antioxidant enzymes and the duration of the disease. Further more the short persistent episodes of hyperglycemia is responsible for the onset and progression of these abnormalities as the antioxidants significantly decreases with increase in F.B.S rather than with the GHA1c