This study was carrid out to examine a part of the mechanism for the etiology of diabetic complications. Thirty normal and forty streptozotocin(STZ)-induced diabetic rats were used as the animal models. Animals were sacrificed at the time points of 3 days, 1, 2, 4 and 6 weeks after STZ-injection and time course in body weight and organ weight, the levels of blood glucose, plasma lipid patterns, and atherogenic index were measured during 6 weeks. The STZ-diabetic animals showed 63% survival rate and fsting blood glucose levels of the diabetic animals measured in the range of 230-410mg/dL during the experimental period. The body weigh of diabetic animals decreased significantly throughout the experimental period and the relative weights of organs to body weight were significantly higher than the normal control ones. The enlargement of the kidney in the diabetic animals was especially remarkable. Plasma triglyceride concentration in diabetic rats substancially increased from the first week of onset of diabetes mellitus and maintained higher levels than the control ones throughout the whole experimental period. The plasma total cholesterol level and atherogenic index in the diabetic rats were significantly higher than the normal ones from the third day after STZ injection and showed a gradual increase with the duration of the disease. Throughout the experiment, the diabetic rats consistently showed a slightly lower HDL-cholesterol level compared to the normal animals. From the results of this study, it appears that the significant changes in blood lipid pattern in STZ-diabetic animals start from the first week after STZ injection.