Yet another data point on the horrors of sugar and processed carbohydrates from MedicalXPress:
University of Oxford researchers found that high blood glucose, a hallmark of diabetes, alters stem cells in the bone marrow that go on to become white blood cells called macrophages. As a result, these macrophages become inflammatory and contribute to the development of atherosclerotic plaques that can cause heart attacks.
This finding explains why people with diabetes are at increased risk of heart attack, even after their blood glucose levels are brought back under control, a paradox that has troubled doctors for years.
Nearly five million people in the UK have diabetes, and adults with the condition have double the risk of having a heart attack. These findings open new possibilities for treatments that could reduce the risk of heart and circulatory disease in people with diabetes.
The team investigated the differences in white blood cells in people with and without type 2 diabetes. They removed the white blood cells from blood samples and grew them in an environment with normal glucose levels. Those from people with type 2 diabetes showed a greatly exaggerated inflammatory response compared to the cells from people without the condition.
Researchers also extracted stem cells from the bone marrow of mice with and without diabetes and transplanted these into mice with normal blood glucose levels. The bone marrow taken from diabetic mice 'remembered' its exposure to high levels of glucose and as a result the mice receiving this bone marrow developed almost double the amount of atherosclerotic plaques.
When the team looked at the mouse macrophages in more detail they found that those that had developed from stem cells in the bone marrow of diabetic mice had been permanently altered to become more inflammatory.
The team now want to explore new avenues for treatments based on this finding. They also want to find out whether short periods of increased blood glucose in people without diabetes have this damaging effect.
