Does autonomic neuropathy precede cardiovascular dysfunction in rats with diabetes?
The cardiac autonomic dysfunction in the absence of any significant changes in vascular dynamics, 4 but not 8 weeks after induction of type 2 diabetes, suggests that the diabetic autonomic neuropathy may precede arterial stiffening and cardiac hypertrophy in the STZ- and NA-treated rats.
High-fat diet-induced OA in mice is due to low-grade inflammation and not to mechanical overload, since no relationship between body weight and OA grade was observed. Moreover, the OA process was inhibited to a great extent by treatment with 2 drugs with antiinflammatory properties. The inflammatory response to a metabolic high-fat challenge may predict individual susceptibility to developing OA later in life. The use of statins or peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ agonists (e.g., rosiglitazone) could be a strategy for interfering with the progression of OA.