Objective To evaluate the association between cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection and atherosclerosis (AS) and explore the possible role of endothelin (ET) and serum tumor necrosis factor(TNF ?) in the pathogenesis of AS in diabetic patients and the relationship between HCMV infection and concentrations of ET and TNF ?. Methods Blood samples were collected from 21 patients with AS of type 2 DM, 47 patients with non AS of type 2 DM and 20 controls. Special antibodies to HCMV (IgM,IgG) were measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) . The concentrations of serum TNF ? and plasma ET were determined by RIA. Results (1) Type 2 diabetic patients, especially those with established AS, had a higher prevalence of active infection of HCMV. (2) The levels of plasma ET and serum TNF ? in type 2 diabetic patients were higher than those in normal people. In the pathogenesis of AS in diabetic patients, the ET played more important role than the TNF ?.(3) There was a significantly positive correlation between anti IgM to HCMV and the level of plasma ET in type 2 DM patients. It suggested that the injury of endothelium cell was related to the active infection of HCMV. Conclusion The study suggests that HCMV infection may be important in the pathogenesis of AS in type 2 diabetic patients and ET possibly plays an important role on the pathological course of AS.

In this article we discuss the correlation between the functional defection of beta cell and its pathogenesis in traditional Chinese medicine;we summarize numbers of studies on Chinese medicine's effect on beta cell in different aspects through ways of experiment and clinical research,thus reflecting the unique effect of Chinese medicine in curing diabetes mellitus and improving the function of beta cell and at last proposing the direction of further study on this subject.