الفهرس 
DIABETES AND ATHEROSCLEROSISOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
Abstract
A
therosclerosis is a major burden of modern society; Diabetes mellitus is an important independent risk factor for the development and severity of all forms of atherosclerosis, including peripheral artery disease (PAD), coronary artery disease (CAD), and cerebrovascular disease (CVD).
Recent researches show that alteration of GUT bacterial population is found to be an important factor for development of atherosclerosis either directly or indirectly through augmenting other known risk factors for atherosclerosis like; diabetes and dyslipidemia.
On the other hand, many members of the gut microbiota are probiotics; Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus are two well-known probiotics, many studies show their athero-protective role and their protective effect against insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.
Our current study examined the gut microbiome Lactobacillus Acidophilus in stool samples of 64 type two diabetes patients, divided into two groups; group one: 32 Type 2 diabetic patients with atherosclerosis, group two: 32 Type 2 diabetic patients without atherosclerosis, classified according to intima media thickness (IMT).
The results of our study showed that:
The results of our study show: 68.8% of cases (22 cases) had positive PCR for Lactobacillus Acidophilus bacteria while, 75.0% positive PCR cases (24 cases) in-group (II). And there was no statistical difference among the two groups (P value = 0.578).
There was a statistically significant difference regarding Lactobacillus Acidophilus bacteria PCR cut-off threshold (PCR CT) in PCR positive cases among the two studied groups, being higher in group one (P-value = 0.016).
In group one, there was a statistically significant positive correlation between PCR cut-off threshold and both the two hours post prandial plasma glucose (2 hrs PP) (P-value= 0.005) and the glycated hemoglobin (HBA1C) (P-value= 0.049) and also a significant positive correlation between PCR cut-off threshold and intimal media thickness (IMT) (P-value= 0.045).
Our results show that PCR cut-off threshold has an excellent predictive value for development of atherosclerosis in type 2 diabetes patients (P value <0.0001, AUC 0.723). The best cutoff value for PCR cut-off threshold is >26.82 which had sensitivity 72.73% and specificity 70.83% for predicting atherosclerosis.
In conclusion, our study provided a clue about protective effect of certain strains of GUT microbiota, exclusively here Lactobacillus Acidophilus against the development of atherosclerosis and macrovascular disease in diabetic patients.