Looking for ways to prevent heart and circulatory disease in people with diabetes

Manipulating insulin like growth factor-1 and hybrid receptor expression as a therapeutic strategy to control insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular repair (renewal)  

Type 2 diabetes affects millions of people across the world and is a major cause of heart attacks and strokes. We urgently need to find new treatments to prevent heart and circulatory disease in people with diabetes, so we can improve the outcome for them. Over the past few years, BHF funding has enabled BHF Professor Kearney to identify new ways to prevent or treat the heart and circulatory complications of type 2 diabetes. He has found that in diabetes a protein in the blood vessel wall that normally protects against atherosclerosis developing called an ‘insulin receptor’, is blocked by a similar protein called the IGF-1 receptor. He has found that manipulating this interaction can improve insulin sensitivity and artery health. Professor Kearney and his team are now examining this process in much more detail in mice to work out exactly how this interaction works. They want to develop new drugs to prevent the IGF-1 receptor blocking the insulin receptor, restoring its protective function and improving the health of blood vessels. This project may reveal a new way to prevent heart and circulatory disease in people with diabetes.