Type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's are strongly connected. I study
People with type 2 diabetes are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. This is revealed by new research, conducted on mice and reported by Agi, which will be presented by Narendra Kumar, associate professor at Texas A&M University in College Station, who led the study, at Discover Bmb, the annual conference of the American Biochemical Society and molecular biology, which began March 23 and will end March 26 in San Antonio. The study offers significant insights into understanding what happens at a molecular level in diabetic people to promote the onset of Alzheimer's.
The research adds to previous investigations into the link between type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, which some scientists have labeled “type 3 diabetes.” The findings suggest that it should be possible to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's by keeping diabetes well controlled and adopting a lifestyle that prevents its onset. “We think that diabetes and Alzheimer's disease are strongly linked, and that by taking preventative or diabetes-enhancing measures we can prevent or at least significantly slow the progression of dementia symptoms into Alzheimer's disease,” Kumar said. Diabetes and Alzheimer's are two of the fastest growing health problems worldwide.
The researchers developed the vaccine using a bacterial vector, called 'LVS capB', as a platform to express highly immunogenic 'B. pseudomallei', capable of inducing an immune response that subsequently protects the host from disease and death in case of infection with the pathogen. 'LVS capB', derived from a weakened form of a vaccine against tularemia, or “rabbit fever”, had been developed in Horwitz's laboratory as a vector platform for creating vaccines against other diseases caused by selected tier 1 agents, such as anthrax and plague, as well as tularemia.
The scientists administered the new vaccine both by skin injection and intranasally in a strain of mice particularly sensitive to 'B. pseudomallei'. The researchers found that the vaccine was not only safe and non-toxic, but also effective against a highly lethal strain of the melioidosis bacterium. Intranasal administration provided better protection than cutaneous injection and a single dose was effective with long-lasting protection. The next steps will be to test the vaccine for protection against pulmonary melioidosis in a second animal model, as required by the Food and Drug Administration in the case of vaccines for which it is not possible to conduct efficacy studies on humans. If it passes this test, the vaccine can be tested on humans to verify its safety and immunogenicity. The researchers will also evaluate the vaccine's effectiveness against subcutaneous infection with 'B. pseudomallei', which is how most cases of melioidosis are thought to be naturally acquired, and they will test it against the closely related tier 1 pathogen 'Burkholderia mallei', which causes the infectious disease glanders and contagious, in humans and animals.