While in our current study conducted in the same model of early stage of 4-week diabetes [6], we showed that the protein expression of HO-1, another important antioxidative enzyme, was decreased significantly in the myocardium of diabetic rats, which suggests that a decrease in HO-1 expression may be a major contributor to hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress in early diabetes. The gene discussed is HMOX1; the disease is diabetes mellitus.