The increase of heart collagen fibers in diabetics is a well known fact, but the consequences are not defined. The aim was to quantify the cardiac collagen fibers in normal and diabetic rats treated with vitamin C. We selected 32 Wistar rats, 16 diabetic animals induced endovenously with streptozootocin, and 16 healthy animals, half of them, diabetics and normals, were treated with vitamin C for 90 days. After the experimental proceeding, the hearts were removed and processed accordingly to conventional protocol for optical microscopy and specific staining for collagen. The results showed that the diabetic rats presented increase in the number of cardiac collagen fibers, but the ones treated with vitamin C showed little accumulation of fibers. It could be concluded that treatment with vitamin C is important for the prevention of heart failure in diabetic animals.
Heart; collagen; Diabetes mellitus; vitamin C
