Drug Protects Against Diabetes And Atherosclerosis In Mice

From Science Daily:

Blocking a single protein with an experimental drug prevented and treated both type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis in laboratory mice that had been fed unhealthy diets and were genetically predisposed to these common killers, according to an article published online at Nature on June 6, 2007.
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In one experiment, mice genetically engineered to be highly susceptible to atherosclerosis were fed high-fat diets and assigned to receive the drug or an inert substance. One set of mice was put on a high-fat “western” diet at five weeks of age; half received the inhibitor drug. A second group of animals ate the western diet for eight weeks, at which time they developed severe atherosclerosis. Then they were started on the drug to determine whether the drug could halt or reverse the disease process.

In both experiments, the drug treatment reduced the size of fatty plaques in the animals’ aortas by more than 50 percent compared to control mice.

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