Hey it’s Han from WrySci-HX talking about how the anti diabetic drug Empagliflozin, brand name Jardiance, has reversed signs of vascular aging in mice! Is this why we’re seeing its benefits in humans? More below ↓↓↓
In the long and difficult fight to defeat aging we may have gotten a new soldier empagliflozin or empa gleeflozen uh empa for short also going by the name guardians this already fda fda-approved drug has reversed signs of vascular aging in mice in a study out of the university of missouri let’s take a deeper look and as always if you’re interested in more
Cool science and tech related content please do drop a like and subscribe more videos coming soon thanks first we should know what empa is it’s an anti-diabetic medicine used to improve glucose control and reduce the risk of cardiovascular death in adults with type 2 diabetes but recently though it’s also been approved to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death
And hospitalization for heart failure in adults in general so how does it work well at least for diabetes it works by inhibiting something called the sodium glucose transporter 2 or sglt2 this guy is responsible for reabsorbing glucose in the kidneys and so when ampa blocks it we get a reduction of glucose renal reabsorption an increase in peeing out sugar and
Overall a glucose lowering effect so that makes sense why it could help with diabetes but doesn’t necessarily explain the cardiovascular benefits to adults in general the authors mention various proposed mechanisms to explain that benefit including weight loss lowering blood pressure increased blood cell mass and more but why not aging so they set up an experiment
Where for six weeks they fed one group of older mice a diet enriched with empa while a separate control group had their regular diet they were looking for two of the main signs of vascular aging and cardiovascular disease development endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffening the latter is relatively self-explanatory but the endothelium is a membrane that
Lines the inside of our blood vessels it controls the contraction and relaxation of the vessel as well as other stuff like blood clotting and immune functions and it turned out that empa significantly improved both endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffening among other aspects we can see an improvement in endothelial function as empatreated animals had
An increase in mesenteric artery fmd compared to controls fmd or flow-mediated dilation refers to how much an artery dilates or widens during an increase in blood flow kind of like when you smd ampa-treated animals also showed a reduction in arterial stiffness which coincided with reductions in mesenteric artery internal diameters another thing the author saw
Was that f actin a protein part of our cytoskeleton was elevated in older mice so they decided to examine the impact of empa on f actin content in the mesenteric arteries ampa-treated animals had decreased f-actin levels along with lower p-cofillin levels which is an enzyme that modulates actin moving on to other areas of the body they found similar results empa
Reduced thoracic aorta stiffness decreased thoracic aorta diameter and boosted the vascular shear rate which otherwise lowers with age in terms of more widespread effects the authors turn to oxidative stress a characteristic sign of aging that is a significant driver of endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffening and thus perhaps the mechanistic reason for the
Previous results the authors found that empatuded animals had lower systemic oxidative stress as measured by plasma mda levels in addition there was also a down regulation in proteins that produce vascular reactive oxygen species now you might be thinking that’s great and all but these results were in mice and if i had a dollar for every time we found some cure but
It was in mice i too could fly a dick rocket into space i completely get the skepticism but i am optimistic in this instance for a couple reasons first the rodent model appears to be pretty appropriate given how it showed endothelial dysfunction and increased arterial stiffness as it aged just like with humans but second and most importantly we already know empa
Has great cardiovascular benefits in humans whether or not they have diabetes that’s why it’s been recently approved to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death in adults in general so this study was less about determining whether or not empa could work but rather why it does work which now appears to be impacting vascular aging this is compounded by the fact that
The vascular effects seen in this study were independent of other changes like in blood pressure blood viscosity body weight and glucose control this means emba had no impact on these four factors and yet was still able to have real benefits another reason why i’m excited is something i mentioned before it’s already fda approved no need to jump through hoops and
Undergo that long process to prove safety and effectiveness that ninety percent of the time results in failure anyway nope instead it’s already here and ready for use and that’s awesome the authors conclude their paper by saying quote the current findings stimulate the need for further clinical investigations to determine the potential role of sglt2 inhibition
As a therapeutic tool to delay or reverse vascular aging and i could not agree more thank you so much for watching and if you made it all the way to the end please do consider dropping a like it really helps of course huge thanks to all patrons and members special shout out to darasour at the scholar level and david at the esteemed scientist level all of your
Support means everything and i am truly grateful if you want to join the party link to my patreon is in the description alright thanks guys peace
Transcribed from video
FDA APPROVED Drug Reverses Vascular Aging in Mice! By WrySci-HX