Morphological and biochemical process changes in coronary arteries of diabetic patients

Diabetes mellitus is a group of metabolic disorders in which a person suffers from elevated blood sugar levels, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is being produced. Elevated levels of blood sugar in diabetic patients lead to a seriesof complications. These can be divided into acute and chronic, which arefurther categorized as non-vascular and vascular. The latter are a consequence of changes in the biochemical processes that occur in the vessel wall. These biochemical processes are based on four independent biochemical abnormalities: 1) increased polyol pathway flux, 2) increased formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), 3) activation of protein kinase C (PKC) and 4) increased hexosamine pathway flux. Independently or in combination, these processes lead to excessive production of free radicals from oxygen metabolism in mitochondria. The glucose-mediated increase of free-radical production and/or the reduction of antioxidant capacity cause changes in oxidative stress, thus changing tissue susceptibility to cell damage. Such a string of phenomena can lead to a closure of a coronary artery segment, which results in the infarction of the heart muscle in the area supplied by this coronary artery. Since cardiac infarction is the most common cause of death in diabetic patients, understanding and researching diabetic angiopathy is of great importance

The role of oxalate in urolithiasis

Urolithiasis is a frequent urological condition and oxalate plays an importantrole in kidney stone formation. Since hyperoxaluria seems to be one of the main risk factors for developing recurrent kidney stones and progressive nephrocalcinosis, many researches are focused on lowering the urinary oxalate. For now, treatment of hyperoxaluria consists of dietary oxalate restrictions and/or therapeutic drug treatment. These are rather limited options and a sufficient reduction in urinary oxalate is not always achieved. In this review, oxalate absorption, its excretion, hyperoxaluria, aswell as some treatment options for hyperoxaluria will be discussed