Effects of chemically-induced stress on blood viscosity of rabbits.

Disease-induced stress in a living system needs its characterization before quantification. We address this problem by studying the flow behaviour of blood of rabbits. The flow behaviour of rabbit blood, both normal and streptozotocin-induced diabetic was observed by plotting viscosity levels against known shear stress. The curves obtained from normal animals showed a curvilinear relationship between eta and tau, whereas the curves obtained from the blood of the induced diabetic animals showed a 'thixotropic' nature i.e. viscosity varies inversely with shear stress. The results obtained were (a) increased viscosity associated with increasing doses, (b) the lower the shear stress, higher was the viscosity and (c) significant variation of viscosity levels between normal and induced-diabetic rabbits observed by increased stress. The possible interpretation of the results in the light of rheological properties of blood is discussed.