Research Description
Diabetes mellitus is increasingly becoming epidemic in US. One of ten Americans has diabetes; and this number is projected to double in the next decade. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) estimates that the total costs of diagnosed diabetes have risen to $245 billion in 2012 from $174 billion in 2007, when the cost was last examined. Among the diabetic mortality and injury, the cardiovascular diseases comprise the main portion of diabetic death. Despite the progresses in treating various diabetic manifestations, the cardiovascular mortality in diabetes remains largely unchanged. One of the main reasons for such situation is still the lack of understanding on the pathogenesis of diabetic cardiovascular complications. To develop effective therapies, we must understand how diabetes damages vascular function. Our project is to study how hypoglycemia impairs vascular function.Research Profile
What area of diabetes research does your project cover? What role will this particular project play in preventing, treating and/or curing diabetes?Our project studies the mechanism of cardiovascular complications of diabetes. Diabetes is by definition a disease of glucose intolerance. Thus, most research on cardiovascular complications in diabetes has been focusing on the roles of hyperglycemia. But years of glucose control treatment appear to have no significant impact on the cardiovascular mortality in diabetes. On the other hand, clinical studies show that in patients with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, hypoglycemia are associated with at least doubled cardiovascular mortality. These data indicate a role of hypoglycemia in cardiovascular complications in diabetes. But very limited knowledge is available on how hypoglycemia may lead to vascular injury. This project focuses on this understudied area with a goal to understand the nature and the underlying mechanisms of vascular injury caused by hypoglycemia. Information learned from the mechanistic studies may eventually lead to new approaches to prevent cardiovascular complications of diabetes.
If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?One of ten Americans has diabetes and this number is projected to double in the next decade. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) estimates that the total costs of diagnosed diabetes have risen to $245 billion in 2012 from $174 billion in 2007 last examined. Among the diabetic mortality and injury, the cardiovascular diseases comprise the main portion of diabetic death. Despite the progresses in treating various diabetic manifestations, the cardiovascular mortality in diabetes remains largely unchanged. Hence identifying the mechanism of vascular injury in diabetic milieu, like our research, will help to find new approaches to improve the healthcare quality to diabetic patients.
Why important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play?I am medically trained and have been doing cardiovascular research. There are increasingly number of patients whose cardiovascular issues are the consequence of diabetes. We must understand diabetes before we can offer effective treatments to these patients. Thus, diabetes research is a natural extension of our research and we have been working on diabetes-associated cardiovascular diseases for years. This ADA Basic Science Award is vital to our current endeavors. This award comes at a critical time to our research program. It will have a long-lasting impact to our ongoing research as well as the career development of the young students in our group.
In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?I anticipate that diabetes research will be undergoing a major development in coming years. However, it will be difficult to predict a future direction as history has repeatedly demonstrated that the main breakthroughs of diabetes science are from unexpected areas. I believe it is of vital importance to continue to support investigator-initiated research as ADA is conducting now.