The Southern Medical Journal (SMJ) is the official, peer-reviewed journal of the Southern Medical Association. It has a multidisciplinary and inter-professional focus that covers a broad range of topics relevant to physicians and other healthcare specialists.

SMJ // Article

Editorial

The Role of Inflammation in Diabetes and Its Complications

Authors: Ali A. Rizvi, MD

Abstract

The contribution of inflammation to morbidity in the closely related conditions of cardiovascular disease, obesity, the metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes has been the focus of extensive research and intense speculation over the past decade.1,2 Many inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP), fibrinogen, the interleukins, tumor necrosis factor-α, tissue-type plasminogen activator, and serum amyloid A have been included in the ever-expanding list of emerging or “nontraditional” risk factors for the atherosclerotic process,3 and they may represent underlying oxidative stress and generation of free radicals that promote damage to the vascular wall. Endothelial injury, plaque rupture, and atherothrombosis are believed to be related by a series of mutually-related cascades that lead to adverse macrovascular (coronary, cerebrovascular, and peripheral vascular) outcomes.4 Histologic and pathophysiologic studies have established a significant inflammatory component against the backdrop of a complex interplay of clinically recognizable risk factors (for example, hypertension, hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, obesity, and smoking).5

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