Author Description

There are over 12 million people with diabetes in the U.S. Blindness, renal failure, and coronary heart disease are the three most frequent complications of late-stage diabetes, and diabetic patients are at greater risk for developing these conditions than the rest of the population. This book examines the link between hyperglycemia and micro- and macro- vascular disease in diabetes. The authors review clinical, epidemiological, and biochemical evidence that high levels of blood glucose produce metabolic and biochemical alterations in vascular walls. These alterations in turn lead to abnormalities in vascular structure and, ultimately, function. Although there are differences in the pathogenesis of these two types of vascular disease, the emphasis in the book is on the common mechanisms by which hyperglycemia produces vascular alterations. This work is unique in providing an integrated picture of the effects of hyperglycemia on vascular metabolism, function, and disease. Implications for therapy are also discussed. Hyperglycemia, Diabetes and Vascular Disease is based on a 1989 FASEB symposium offered by the American Physiological Society, and is a volume in the Society's Clinical Physiology Series.