A perspective on the role of metals in diabetes: past findings and possible future directions

Abstract

In this review, the authors present a brief overview of metals and their possible roles as determinants in the pathogenesis of diabetes and complications. Of course, due to the complexity of diabetes and its far-reaching complications, it would be difficult to cover every metal that has been implicated in diabetes. Therefore, this review has two main objectives, the first of which is to educate the reader with regards to the types of diabetes and complications, especially in relation to hyperglycemia and anti-oxidant properties. Following an overview of the more cited metals in diabetes, the second objective of this review is to offer some opinions about current needs in the area of metal analysis. Specifically, the challenges for scientists to perform quantitative determinations on biological samples in near-real time with subcellular-level spatial resolution.