著者
Miyako Kishimoto Hisako Endo Shotaro Hagiwara Akiyoshi Miwa Mitsuhiko Noda
出版者
The University of Tokushima Faculty of Medicine
雑誌
The Journal of Medical Investigation (ISSN:13431420)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.57, no.3,4, pp.345-349, 2010 (Released:2010-09-14)
参考文献数
11
被引用文献数
10 17

Excessive iron storage sometimes causes diabetes in patients with hemochromatosis, a disease caused by iron overloading. We performed an immunohistochemical analysis to study an autopsy case of aplastic anemia and diabetic hemochromatosis caused by frequent blood transfusions, and extensive hemosiderin deposition was observed in the liver and pancreas. The pancreatic islets of the patient and a control subject were stained to detect glucagon, insulin, and proinsulin. Significantly lower levels of immunoreactivity with both insulin antibodies and proinsulin antibodies, but not with glucagon antibodies, was observed in the islet cells in the patient’s tissue than in the islet cells of the control. Hemosiderin deposition in the islets is known to be exclusively distributed in the β-cells, thus, selective iron-induced damage to the β-cells may have affected insulin synthesis and secretion and led to glucose intolerance in the patient. J. Med. Invest. 57: 345-349, August, 2010