Researchers report that controlling intracellular calcium levels may offer a new dual approach to hypertension and diabetes

DailyUpdates 24th March 2004: Up to 65% of diabetics also have hypertension. New data suggests that elevated intracellular calcium levels contributes to both of these co-morbid conditions and that calcium regulators represent a novel single modal approach.

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of mortality and prevention of acute events is a high priority. Major risk factors include hypertension, dyslipidemia and diabetes. In particular, 60-65% of diabetics also have hypertension.

Pill burden diminishes compliance in patients treated for one or more of these conditions and one potential solution to this problem is the development of multi-modal drugs, which in a single compound, can target a number of risk factors. Examples of this include the AGE Cross-link breakers which can target hypertension and type 2 diabetes.

In the March edition of the Journal Metabolism, Korean researchers report that elevated intracellular calcium may be an etiological factor in hypertension and insulin resistance and propose that molecules able to reduce intracellular calcium levels back to within the physiological range as another dual approach to the simultaneous treatment of hypertension and type 2 diabetes.

In their paper Jang et al report that rats fed a high-fat diet develop insulin resistance and hypertension. Intravenous injection of dimethyl-BAPTA/AM, an effective intracellular calcium chelator, not only restored insulin sensitivity, but also normalized blood pressure. The chelator also increased insulin sensitivity and reduced normal blood pressure values in spontaneously hypertensive rats. The same group have recently shown that the calcium chelator is able to normalize elevated intracellular calcium levels in adipocytes from rats on a high-fat diet.

These results together demonstrate that lowering intracellular calcium simultaneously ameliorates both insulin resistance and hypertension and provide presumptive evidence that sustained high levels of intracellular calcium may play a common pathophysiologic role in these 2 diseases. This study may offer new leads for the development of single therapeutic entities able to treat both diabetes and hypertension.

(source DailyUpdates 24th March; for a full abstract of the original paper see Metabolism. 2004 Mar;53(3):269-72; for a second related paper in this edition see Eur J Vasc Endovasc Surg. 2004 Apr;27(4):432-7)

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