Aldose Reductase Meets

With diabetes reaching epidemic proportions, there is an urgent need for reliable treatment strategies for microvascular (retinopathy, neuropathy, and ne-phropathy) and macrovascular (coronary heart disease and stroke) diabetes complications. The role of diabetic hyperglycemia in the development of complications has been extensively studied and a number of bio-chemical pathways activated by hyperglycemia have been identified. Among these, the polyol pathway is perhaps the most investigated and the most contro-versial pathway. The initial discovery by Ruth van Heyningen (1) of high sorbitol levels in diabetic rat lenses over 50 years ago followed by studies by Jin Kinoshita (2) laid the foundation for the polyol hypothesis in the pathogenesi