Plasma and erythrocyte vitamin E levels in children with insulin dependentdiabetes mellitus

Vitamin E is considered to be one of the most important antioxidants, There is a trend today to supply diabetic children with vitamin E in order to pr event microvascular complications. In this study, our objective was to demo nstrate validity of plasma and erythrocyte vitamin E levels in diabetic chi ldren. This study was conducted on twenty-five diabetic patients aged from 7-16 years and ten non-diabetic, age-matched healthy subjects as the contro l group. Vitamin E levels were measured by high-performance liquid chromato graphy. There was no significant difference between the mean plasma vitamin E levels of diabetic and control groups, 870.80 +/- 220.51 mu g/dl and 891 +/- 221.21 mu g/dl, respectively (p>0.05), The mean erythrocyte vitamin E levels of diabetic and control groups were significantly different: 183.12 +/- 62.58 mu g/dl and 246.90 +/- 68.26 mu g/dl, respectively (p<0.05). Eryt hrocyte vitamin E levels were significantly lower than plasma vitamin E lev els in both groups. We further investigated whether a correlation exists be tween plasma and erythrocyte vitamin E levels and duration of diabetes, ins ulin dose and HbA(1c) measurements. However no correlation was found. In co nclusion, measurement of erythrocyte vitamin E levels may be considered to be more valuable than plasma vitamin E levels in diabetic children and supp lementation may be provided according to erythrocyte levels rather than pla sma levels.