Broken blood vessels are the real problem in diabetes

Most people think cardiovascular disease is all about heart problems and diabetes, is all about sugar problems and the pancreas.

But the heart is a victim of the “real” problem. And the sugar is compounding the “real” problem.

So what is the “real” problem ?

Blood vessels are the “real” problem. The blood vessels have become damaged and this leads to blocks and breaks which can have some nasty consequences.

Heart attacks
Strokes
Blindness
Amputation

Blood vessel troubles begin with too little FAS

A little fancy molecular biology, allowed scientists at Washington University, to create a very special kind of mouse, the FAS less mice (FASTie).

What makes these mice so special, is they are unable to produce the enzyme, fatty acid synthase (FAS) in their blood vessels. The mice can produce the enzyme in the rest of their bodies, so everywhere else things are “normal”.

It turns out, the FASTie mice develop broken blood vessels. The reason for this is because without the FAS enzyme, they are unable to produce a type of “molecular glue”, which holds another enzyme, nitric oxide synthase (NOS), onto the cells lining the blood vessels. The process that is defective is called palmitoylation.

The absence of the fused NOS becomes problematic, because the cells are not being supplied with sufficient nitric oxide, the chemical produced by the enzyme. Nitric oxide is a very important messenger so the blood vessels can’t function properly. They become leaky when damaged and the repair process is flawed.

So who cares ?

Insulin instigates FAS shortages

People suffering from diabetes, both type 1 (too little insulin) and type 2 (too much insulin), typically have very low levels of this enzyme in their blood vessels.

So in diabetics, NOS is not able to bond to the blood vessel cells, resulting in unhealthy blood vessels, that cannot recover very well from damage. The final cherry on the top, is that high sugar levels, found in diabetes, cause lots of blood vessel damage.