Autophagy against diabetes complications
Cleansing from damaged cells helps to restore blood vessels in diabetes
Scientists have found that stimulating autophagy – a system for recycling cellular waste – helps to heal the blood vessels of diabetics. The results of the study are published in the journal Experimental Physiology (Choi et al., Stimulation of autophagy improves vascular function in the mesenteric arteries of type 2 diabetic mice).
Autophagy is a mechanism by which the body is cleansed of unnecessary or damaged cells in order to regenerate new, healthier ones. Doctors assumed that the violation of autophagy was somehow connected with type 2 diabetes, but they did not know exactly how.
Scientists from the Medical College of Yonsei University in Seoul suggested that this leads to vascular dysfunction in diabetes, which means that stimulating autophagy will improve their condition.
Complications related to blood vessels are the main risk factor for diabetic patients. Damage to the small vessels of the eyes can lead to blindness, kidneys – to kidney failure, nerves – to impotence and diabetic foot. The latter, as a rule, ends with amputation. Even more severe complications are caused by lesions of large coronary arteries and vessels of the lower extremities.
The researchers measured the diameter of small arteries in mice with type 2 diabetes. It turned out that the functioning of most arteries was disrupted due to the weakening of autophagy processes.
Then they injected sick mice and healthy animals from the control group with rapamycin and trehalose and watched how the effect of drugs stimulating autophagy would affect the function of the mesenteric artery.
It turned out that the myogenic response – the ability of small blood vessels to respond to changes in intravascular pressure, as well as the overall tone of the vessels after stimulation increased significantly.
"We are pleased with these results. Our study shows that targeting autophagy can become a strategy for the treatment of vascular diseases in patients with type 2 diabetes," the words of the first author of the study, Soo–Kyoung Choi, are quoted in a press release from the Physiological Society of Great Britain.
This is the first experimental evidence of the connection between autophagy disorders and vascular dysfunction in type 2 diabetes, as well as the fact that stimulating this internal mechanism allows for increased vascular protection.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru