If there’s one theme that keep recurring in so many studies on Aging and Longevity, it’s the word “inflammation.” A ton of research has already been done to demonstrate its relationship with aging, and new research keeps demonstrating how its reduction can promote longevity.
That’s why we noticed this article, which explains why inflammation is a common denominator between Cancer and cardiovascular disease — both major causes of death generally, but particularly among the Elderly — and suggests that there are drug therapies that can work for both.
From the article: “Newly discovered parallels between the origins and development of these two diseases mean that some treatments may be effective against both… It turns out that tiny, engineered nanoparticles that can target specific immune cells may be a way to treat both cancer and cardiovascular disease.”
What is the role of inflammation in both diseases?
“Many of the similarities between cardiovascular disease and cancer can be traced to inflammation. Chronic inflammation is a primary cause of atherosclerosis by damaging the cells lining the blood vessels and progressively worsening plaques.
“Likewise, chronic inflammation can initiate cancer by increasing mutations and support cancer cell survival and spread by increasing the Growth of the blood vessels that feed them nutrients and suppressing the body’s immune response.”
According to the article, there are already examples of therapies designed for cancer that can help with cardiovascular issues.
“One example is drugs that target immune cells called macrophages in tumors and cause them to eat cancer cells. It turns out a similar drug can cause macrophages to clear dead and dying cells in atherosclerosis, which shrinks plaques.
“Another example are antiglycolytic therapies that prevent the breakdown of glucose. Glucose, or sugar, is the body’s main source of energy. These drugs can make diseased tumor blood vessels and atherosclerotic blood vessels look more “normal,” essentially reversing the disease process in those vessels. They can also reduce inflammation in atherosclerosis.”
An intriguing idea is to use nanotube-loaded immune cells for both. Nanotubes are very small particles made of carbon that is over 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, and “can go into specific immune cells, Travel through the bloodstream and enter tumors as a Trojan horse. These nanotubes can carry anything that researchers put on them, including drugs and imaging contrast agents.”
Nanotubes were first developed for cancer in 1995, but researchers are now “studying whether nanontube-loaded immune cells may also serve as delivery vehicles to plaques. Nanotubes can be loaded with a Therapy that stimulates immune cells to “eat” plaque debris and thus reduce plaque size. Moreover, restricting drug delivery specifically to those immune cells reduces the risk of off-target side effects. These nanotubes can also be used to improve diagnosis of cardiovascular disease by highlighting plaques.”
Bottom line: “Because of the parallels between cancer and cardiovascular disease, cancer nanodrugs may be strong drug candidates to treat cardiovascular disease and vice versa.As basic science discovers other molecular parallels between these diseases, patients will be the beneficiaries of better therapies that can treat both.”
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