Diabetes mellitus: a process of accelerated ageing

Diabetes mellitus [DM] is a very common chronic disease with multiple complications. One of these complications is neuropathy. The neural cells undergo specific defects which resemble very much to the changes seen during the process of ageing. Many experimental results are now indicating that diabetes mellitus accelerates the process of ageing. In this review we describe some of our results that showed the neural defects resulted by the induction of diabetes mellitus in rats. The experimental results include electrophysiological examinations of the hippocampal slices prepared from streptozotocin [STZ]- induced DM and age-matched control rats. Field potential recordings revealed synaptic plasticity defects in the diabetic rats. Intracellular recording of the pyramidal cells in the hippocampus using sharp electrode revealed changes in some of the basic cellular mechanisms. The biochemical studies we did showed defects in N-methyl-D-Aspartate [NMDA] receptor expression in the post synaptic membrane. We performed as well behavioral studies to test the learning and memory in these diabetic animals and compared their performance with the aged-matched control. The interaction of diabetes mellitus and ageing is discussed using the results we obtained from animal experiments and compared them with the results obtained from diabetic patients