Type 2 diabetes Cytokines Immune system Back ground: The blurred unclear link between the immune system and diabetes has made this issue an exciting research area. Cytokines are excellent evaluating tools for the immune system activity in any disease. They reflect the overall state of the immune system. Therefore, we hypothesized the disruption of the Th1 pathway as a consequence of the type 2 diabetes. We evaluated IL-12 which induces Th1 pathway and IL-2 which mediates Th1 function to prove

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... r hypothesis. Almost, no previous studies gave clear image for the relationship between these two interleukins together and type 2 diabetes. Methods: Eighty Four diabetic Egyptian patients and 105 of normal control volunteer were chosen to evaluate the level of serum IL-2 and IL-12 in their blood using ELISA technique. To provide a complete image about the state of each subject, we made routine laboratory analysis including fasting blood glucose, fasting insulin, CRP, lipid profile and CBC for each volunteer. Results: There was a difference in the mean value of both IL-2 and IL-12 serum level between both patients and control. The patients have decreased IL-2 and increased IL-12 than control volunteers. It was interesting to provide a significant correlation between the serum level of IL-2 and IL-12 in patients. Conclusion: The significant correlation between IL-2 and IL-12 and the mean difference in their serum levels between diabetic patients and control can reflect the importance of these two cytokines in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes. Future studies with larger sample can confirm our results.