Hyperglycemia—excess blood sugar, the central feature of diabetes—can react with immune proteins to cause changes in the immune system, including those that promote atherosclerosis.
While doctors have known for decades that chronic hyperglycemia increases the risk of atherosclerosis and weakens immunity against infections, the new study describes the molecular pathways by which it happens.
The work—published in Immunity, with Laura Santambrogio, MD, PhD, a professor of radiation oncology and of physiology and biophysics and associate director for precision immunology at the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, as co-senior author—was conducted using cells from mice engineered to model obesity and type 2 diabetes.
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This article was repurposed from the Weill Cornell Medicine Summer 2021 Magazine.