An innovative research project with the potential for transforming our understanding and treatment of the long-term cardiovascular consequences of diabetes will soon get underway at Oxford University thanks to support from the Kusuma Trust.
Diabetes is a huge and growing global problem. Around 476 million people are thought to live with the disease worldwide, with those who do twice as likely to die from a heart attack as a non-diabetic person. Understanding how diabetes distorts and disrupts the immune system and how that, in turn, drives coronary artery and vascular disease, leading to heart attack and stroke, is of great importance.
A gift of £149,990 from the Kusuma Trust will enable researchers in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine to build on earlier work exploring this link. In 2021 the Choudhury Lab discovered that diabetes fundamentally reprogrammes the immune system, thereby exacerbating cardiovascular disease and its complications. Their findings addressed the paradox of why treating high glucose in patients with diabetes does not reduce the risk of heart attack.
With the support of the Trust, the Choudhury Lab will now explore how to use these findings for patient benefit. The work, led by Professor Robin Choudhury and undertaken by Dr Kate Robinson, will delve deeper into how parts of the immune system get jammed ‘on’ in diabetes.
It is hoped that this will open up new possibilities for the diagnosis, prevention, treatment and monitoring of diabetes, moving beyond the current narrow focus on glucose management.
Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and consultant cardiologist Robin Choudhury said: ‘We are grateful to the Kusuma Trust for supporting our work to examine how glucose reprogrammes the immune system. Our earlier published studies showed that diabetes changes stem cells in the bone marrow and we are excited to be able to extend this work to look at new cell types, through the support of the trust.
‘The motivation for this work is to try to crack the long-standing paradox of why high sugar levels drive cardiovascular disease, but correcting the sugar level does not treat that disease. This is an enormous global health challenge.’
The Kusuma Trust is a family-led trust that supports causes, organisations and people making a positive difference to society. Executive Trustee Soma Pujari said: ‘At Kusuma Trust we are committed to supporting research that looks at different aspects of heart attack and heart failure that may lead to improved outcomes for patients. We wish Professor Choudhury and Dr Robinson all the best in their quest.’