P.A.S. positive index of lymphocytes and metabolic control in insulin-treated and type II diabetes mellitus.

The relationship between metabolic control and glycogen lymphocyte content in diabetes mellitus, was studied. 30 insulin-treated and 30 type II diabetic subjects were evaluated with 40 age and sex matched normal controls. Glycaemic control was evaluated by a fasting and 2 h post-prandial plasma glucose and by glycosylated hemoglobin (GHb). Glycogen lymphocyte content was determined by calculation of the PAS-positive Index of the lymphocytes (PIL) according to Skrabalo. While fasting and post-prandial plasma glucose values were significantly higher in insulin-treated than in type II diabetes (p less than 0.001), no differences in GHb values were observed between the two groups (10.31 +/- 0.23% vs 9.80 +/- 0.36%). The mean PIL values were not different in these two groups (0.11 +/- 0.01 vs 0.12 +/- 0.02), but they were significantly higher when compared with control values (0.03 +/- 0.004, p less than 0.001), PIL was positively correlated with GHb in both insulin-treated (r = 0.76, p less than 0.001) and type II diabetes (r = 0.55, p less than 0.001). A correlation between PIL and plasma glucose values was observed only in the insulin-treated group and was weaker (p less than 0.005). No correlation was observed between glycogen lymphocyte content and glucose tolerance in the control group. These data confirm that diabetes mellitus is characterized by a significant increase of PAS-positive lymphocyte content and that it correlates well with glycaemic control.