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In 2019, about 463 million people suffered from diabetes and over 2 million people lost their lives to its complications, including common cardiovascular complications such as heart attacks and strokes. We need to discover new ways to combat diabetes and its complications to improve the quality of life and prolong the survival of millions of patients.

High blood sugar is toxic for blood vessels and this toxic effect is believed to be responsible for the cardiovascular complications of diabetes, such as heart attacks and strokes. Insulin is a common treatment used to reduce blood sugar levels in people with diabetes – usually administered with an insulin pen or pump.

But much to scientists’ surprise, clinical trials have shown that insulin treatment doesn’t reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes, even though it greatly reduces sugar in the bloodstream. This means that controlling blood sugar with insulin is not enough to prevent damage in the blood vessels of patients with diabetes. Why does this happen? What are we missing in this chain of events?

Read the full article on The Conversation website, written by Ioannis Akoumianakis and Charalambos Antoniades (Radcliffe Department of Medicine)

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