Chronic cigarette smoking is associated with increased plasma circulating intercellular adhesion molecule 1 levels in young type 1 diabetic patients

OBJECTIVE - The purposes of this study were to compare plasma concentrations of circulating intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (cICAM-1), a marker of endothelial dysfunction, in nondiabetic subjects and type 1 diabetic patients and to evaluate whether chronic cigarette smoking had a deleterious effect on plasma cICAM-1 levels in type 1 diabetic patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - Plasma cICAM-1 concentrations were measured in 54 young type 1 diabetic patients without clinical macroangiopathy and in 20 healthy control subjects who were matched for age, sex, BMI, and smoking habit. RESULTS - Type 1 diabetic patients had significantly higher plasma levels of cICAM-1 than control subjects (280.4 +/- 59 vs. 224 +/- 53.6 ng/ml, respectively) (P < 0.001). After stratification by smoking status, diabetic smokers had values for age, sex, BMI, lipids, blood pressure, glycemic control, diabetes duration, and chronic complications of diabetes that were superimposable on their nonsmoking counterparts. Nevertheless, plasma cICAM-1 levels were markedly elevated in type 1 diabetic smokers (321.4 +/- 64.2 vs. 257.3 +/- 41.5 ng/ml, respectively) (P < 0.001) in a dose-dependent fashion (P < 0.001 by analysis of variance when subjects were categorized by number of cigarettes smoked per day). CONCLUSIONS - Chronic cigarette smoking has a deleterious effect on plasma cICAM-1 levels in young type 1 diabetic patients, which further supports the clinical importance of discouraging the initiation of smoking and promoting its cessation in people with type 1 diabetes.