Vanadium compounds metabolic properties

The discovery of the insulinomimetic elfect of vanadium ions and their complexes as potential agents for treatment of diabetes has been considered as the most remarkable progress in the diabetic therapy over the last two decades [2,4c]. Since a series of landmark studies in 1979 and 1980 demonstrated the ability of vanadate and vanadyl to have insulin-like biological effects of glucose uptake and metabolism in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue in vivo, much work has been focused on exploring the insulin-mimetic properties of vanadate and vanadyl both in vitro and in vivo and on developing new vanadium compounds as potential insulin alternatives in diabetes treatment [156-162], which... 

EPR methods have uncovered a number of properties of insulin-enhancing vanadium compounds that would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain by other methods. The strengths of EPR spectroscopy, such as its natural selectivity, the high-resolving power of closely related structural isomers, and ease of in-vivo application have been exploited to reveal important details regarding the solution chemistry, absorption, metabolism, and bioaccumulation of antidiabetic vana-... 

---