Platelets and Diabetes Mellitus

IN 1977 Halushka and his colleagues reported that platelets from patients with diabetes produced more prostaglandin E-like material upon exposure to adenosine diphosphate, epinephrine, or collagen than did platelets from normal subjects.1 These observations indicate that either the platelets of diabetics free more arachidonic acid from membrane phospholipids when they are stimulated by aggregating agents, or more arachidonic acid is converted to thromboxane A2 and prostaglandins. This report offered evidence that the increased sensitivity of platelets from diabetics to aggregating agents might be related specifically to this metabolic pathway. The same investigators had shown earlier that the enhanced second . . .