Fig. 1

N-acetylcysteine treatment attenuated myocardial dysfunction in diabetic rats. Control (C) or STZ-induced diabetic rats were either untreated (D) or treated with antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (1.5 g/kg/day, NAC) by oral gavage for 4 weeks. All the rats were lightly anesthetized and performed transthoracic echocardiography. a–f Heart rate (a), fractional shortening (FS) (b), fractional left ventricular posterior wall thickening (FLVPW) (c), ejection fraction (EF) (d), left ventricular isovolumic relaxation time (IVRT) (e), and the ratio of peak velocity of early and late diastolic filling (E/A) (f). All the results are expressed as mean ± SD, n = 7 per group. Differences were determined by using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test. *P < 0.05 vs. all the other groups