Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

Protein Block Stops Vascular Damage in Diabetes

June 5, 2013 By Lund University

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have discovered how to stop the destructive process that leads to cardiovascular disease in diabetic laboratory animals.

It is well known that high blood sugar levels significantly raise the risk of cardiovascular disease. It is unclear, however, why this happens. An important part of the explanation may be NFAT, a protein activated when blood sugar is raised and which starts a chain of events that damage the blood vessels and accelerate the development of atherosclerosis.

“We have now shown that it is possible to stop the atherosclerosis caused by diabetes despite the fact that the mice continued to have high blood sugar levels”, said Maria Gomez, a researcher at the Lund University Diabetes Centre. Over the course of four weeks, the researchers gave diabetic mice a new substance originally developed as an immunosuppressant that prevented the activation of the NFAT protein.

Apart from the blood vessels, the substance did not affect NFAT in any other cells of the body.

“That is important. We don’t want to suppress the whole immune system. We also saw that the substance only has an effect when NFAT is active. The plaque formation was only stopped in diabetic mice and not in non-diabetic mice, which had normal blood sugar levels”, Anna Zetterqvist points out. “It appears that there are different mechanisms behind plaque formation caused by diabetes and not caused by diabetes”, she added.

The process of plaque formation in the blood vessels of diabetic mice resembles the process in humans. The plaques go through the same stages and the damage worsens with age.

“Despite major progress in the treatment of cardiovascular disease in recent decades, there is no treatment that specifically targets the damage to the blood vessels experienced by diabetes patients. Our findings show that blocking the NFAT protein could constitute such a treatment”, said Maria Gomez.

For more information, visit Lund University.

Related Articles Read More >

Engineer inspecting artificial hip joint parts in quality control department in orthopaedic factory
Deburring and finishing for beautiful, functional medical devices
A Medtronic HVAD pump opened up to show the inner workings
FDA designates new Medtronic HVAD pump implant recall as Class I
Dexcom One
How Dexcom’s portfolio goes beyond highly-anticipated next-gen G7
A portrait of Stryker executive Siddarth Satish
How Stryker includes users for product design in the digital age

DeviceTalks Weekly.

June 24, 2022
How innovative design, commercial strategy is building Cala Trio’s bioelectronic medicine market
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech 100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media LLC. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech