Global obesity and type 2 diabetes rates are rising due to many people consuming a Western diet high in fats and refined sugars. However, researchers discovered that the drug medication used for diabetes called Linagliptin may provide cardiovascular protection for obese people as it showed in mice models.
According to Science Daily, people who are at a high risk of developing heart disease were obese and diabetic premenopausal women. Researchers from the University of Missouri-Columbia then experimented on obese mice models whether the diabetes drug Linagliptin could prevent the stiffening of the left ventricle of the heart.
"In previous studies, we showed that young, female mice consuming a Western diet, high in fat, sucrose and high fructose corn syrup, not only gained weight, but also exhibited vascular stiffening consistent with obese premenopausal women,” a research associate professor of endocrinology at the MU School of Medicine and study lead author, Vincent DeMarco, Ph.D., explained. Their current study was said to determine whether diabetes drug Linagliptin will prevent heart stiffening or not.
With that said, the diabetes drug Linagliptin was then described to lower blood glucose in Type 2 diabetes patients by blocking the enzyme dipeptidyl peptidase-4, or DPP-4. DeMarco and his colleagues then assessed 34 female mice for four months. The study involved mice models which were grouped into three.
The first group was fed a normal diet as the second group was fed with a Western diet. The third group was said to be fed with a simulated Western diet with a low dose of Linagliptin. All the mice in the groups then had their left ventricle of the heart assessed through the usual ultrasound system used in humans as reported by News Medical.
The result from the study was concluded that the mice group which were fed with western diet, increased heart weight gained fat but drastically developed diastolic dysfunction. On the other hand, the mice fed with Western diet along with a small dose of Linagliptin did not develop diastolic dysfunction. The mice were also said to have less oxidative stress and inflammation in their hearts.
However, the effect of the Linagliptin wasn’t the only success discovered by the study. The diabetes drug was also mentioned to stop TRAF3IP2 production as well. DeMarco then concluded that ongoing clinical trials are needed to discover the effect of the drug in obesity-related heart diseases.
