Antihypertensive treatment in spontaneously hypertensive rats with streptozotocin-induced diabetes mellitus

Recent clinical reports have suggested that hypertension accelerates the progress of diabetic nephropathy and retinopathy, whereas antihypertensive treatments may retard them. Thus, the effect of antihypertensive treatment in diabetes mellitus with hypertension was evaluated in rats. A model of diabetes mellitus with hypertension has been developed in spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) rats by unilateral nephrectomy and streptozotocin (STZ, 30 mg/kg, i.v. treatment). The rats were treated with four antihypertensive drugs orally for 12 weeks thereafter. STZ treatment induced chronic hypeglycaemia (300-400 mg/dl), decreased body weight and heart rate, and caused vascular changes of ophthalmic fundi and cataracta. The kidney of these rats showed proliferative changes such as periarteritis nodosa, hyperplasia, or fibronecrosis of the arterioles, exudative changes, mesangial proliferation, or thickening of the basement membrane of the glomeruli. Enalapril (10 mg/kg per day) and remipril (Hoe 498) (1 mg/kg per day), converting enzyme inhibitors, or arotinolol (20 mg/kg per day), a beta-adrenoceptor blocking drug, decreased blood pressure, prevented the development of renal and ocular lesions, and tended to increase creatinine clearance. Nisoldipine (3 mg/kg per day), a calcium-entry blocking drug, tended to decrease blood glucose, and prevented the decrease of body weight and development of ocular lesions. In conclusion, antihypertensive treatments were effective in preventing the progress of diabetic retinopathy and nephropathy, and renal insufficiency in this animal model.