The intrarenal blood flow distribution and role of nitric oxide in diabetic rats

The results showed that superficial cortical blood flow and deep cortical blood flow were significantly greater (P < .05) in diabetic rats compared with control rats (n = 8) (superficial cortical blood flow, 2.18 ± 0.22 vs 1.55 ± 0.21 V; deep cortical blood flow, 1.32 ± 0.13 vs 0.99 ± 0.14 V) with the significant increase in renal blood flow (18.1 ± 3.3 vs 14.5 ± 2.7 mL/min). Furthermore, it was shown that in diabetic rats the intravenous infusion of a low dose of l-NAME, which did not alter medullary blood flow, decreased cortical blood flow (CBF) (P < .05), whereas in control rats l-NAME did not affect CBF but a high dose of l-NAME decreased medullary blood flow (P < .05). We conclude that in early diabetic nephropathy the blood flow is increased in both the superficial and deep cortexes, and nitric oxide plays an important role in regulating the CBF during the development of diabetic nephropathy.