Top 2 Killer Diseases in America Could Be Treated With a Single Drug

According to biomedical engineer Bryan Smith, who has spent twenty years studying and innovating ways to boost the travel of drugs through the body, small engineered nanoparticles that aim for specific immune cells could treat both cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Cardiovascular Disease & Cancer: America's Top 2 Killer Diseases

When it comes to cardiovascular disease, the most deadly form is known as atherosclerosis. It comes from inflammation and the accumulation of cholesterol, fat, and other lipids within the blood vessel wall. As it builds up, a plaque is formed.

In most cases, heart attacks are caused by the rupture of a plaque. The attempt of the body to heal the wound could lead to the formation of a blood clot that could block blood vessels and lead to a heart attack.

Cancer, on the other hand, can begin and surface in any body organ. It usually arises from genetic mutations that lead to the uncontrollable division of cells. When unrestrained, the rapid growth of cells that are left untreated could be destructive. This is due to how it is hard to stop without having healthy organs harmed.

Shared Risk Factors

While both cancer and cardiovascular disease have different causes and origins, they actually share several risk factors. For instance, chronic stress, smoking, obesity, and some lifestyle choices are associated with both conditions.

Several of these shared similarities could be traced back to inflammation. Atherosclerosis is primarily caused by chronic inflammation that damages the cells that line the blood vessels and worsens plaques progressively.

As for cancer, chronic inflammation can also prompt the condition by boosting mutations and supporting the survival and spread of cancer cells. It does so by boosting blood vessel growth that feeds nutrients and suppresses the immune response of the body.

A Possible Single Treatment

A novel discovery has revealed that nanotubes, which are tiny particles consisting of carbon that is more than 10,000 times thinner compared to human hair, can enter immune cells, move through the bloodstream, and go inside tumors to serve as a Trojan horse. Such nanotubes bring anything that is put into them, which could be imaging contrast agents or drugs.

The immune cells that carry these nanotubes naturally home in over the tumors through the inflammatory response. As atherosclerosis and cancer are both inflammatory conditions, the team of Smith has been looking into whether the immune cells loaded with nanotubes could directly serve as a delivery vehicle to plaques.

These nanotubes can be filled with a therapy that prompts the immune cells to consume plaque debris and, in turn, reduce the size of the plaque. On top of this, the restriction of drug delivery specifically to the immune cells could reduce the chances of having side effects off-target. The nanotubes can also be used for boosting cardiovascular disease diagnosis through plaque highlighting.

Aside from this, nanoparticles may also go inside tumors by squeezing through new blood vessel openings that are grown in inflammatory conditions. This is called the enhanced permeation and retention effect, wherein bigger nanoparticles and molecules build up in tissue that has leaky blood vessels and stay there for a time due to their size.

This was first found in cancer. Now, the researchers are looking into applying the effect to boost cardiovascular disease drug delivery. This may also involve blood vessels that are leaking.

As science sheds light on the molecular parallels between the two conditions, patients may become beneficiaries of enhanced therapies that could treat both diseases.

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