BAX and diabetes mellitus: Diabetes seems to induce apoptosis via activation of the caspase-3 pathway (P = 0.003), mean of 0.97 ± 0.31 for D0, 0.75 ± 0.24 for D20 and 0.36 ± 0.24 for C0 (Fig 6), without changes in bax expression in SMG, mean of 1.06 ± 0.29 for C0 and 1.16 ± 0.54 for D0 (Fig 6).