August 13, 2015
Breakthrough in diabetes research
The high incidence of diabetes has seen a breakthrough in research from Otago University.
The researchers lead by Dr Rajesh Katere, of the physiology department, have discovered why heart disease is the leading killer of people with diabetes.
Dr Katere says the breakthrough finding opens the way for new treatments to combat the disease by targeting a key protein in diabetic heart cells, called Beclin-1.
He says given that the growing diabetes epidemic is set to create major global economic and social costs in the coming decades, it is very exciting to have opened up a new research avenue that could greatly decrease the disease's burden.
In New Zealand its estimated that nearly 8 percent of Maori have diabetes along with Pacific Islanders who are three times more likely to suffer from diabetes than the general population and five times more likely to die from it.
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