It's the glucose, stupid!

The subject line is borrowed from Barry Groves' blog, a must-read. He is pointing out an important paper, published recently:

"Systemic Correlates of Angiographic Coronary Artery Disease" by José Pedro L. Nunes, João Carlos Silva

It is worth pointing out, not surprising to most of us heretics, that they found no correlation whatsoever of coronary arterial disease with the lipids:

Quote:

Lipids accumulate in arterial walls in atherosclerosis. In the present study, we could find no evidence of an association between lipid fractions and CADB. Most patients were treated with lipid-lowering drugs, and this may be one of the reasons behind these negative findings, particularly in what concerns LDL cholesterol. In the present study, HDL cholesterol levels were also not correlated to CADB, although previous studies have been shown HDL to be negatively associated with the importance of coronary artery disease, whereas no such relation was noted involving LDL cholesterol [16]–[17].

What shouldn't be surprising either, is that high glucose and high insulin (presumed) were significantly correlated, quote:

In the context of the present investigation, one may speculate that higher plasma glucose, probably in the presence of elevated plasma insulin, could be associated to a growth-stimulating effect on atherosclerotic lesions, perhaps involving magnesium as a cofactor for insulin-stimulated growth.

Stan (Heretic)

P.S.

[geek warning level = high]

What also caught my attention is the reference #23:

FEBS Lett. 1997 Nov 17;417(3):283-6. "Inhibition of MAP kinase blocks insulin-mediated DNA synthesis and transcriptional activation of c-fos by Elk-1 in vascular smooth muscle cells.",
Xi XP, Graf K, Goetze S, Hsueh WA, Law RE.

After a brief look, it seems to tie with Dr. Kwasniewski's postulated Pentose Phosphate Pathway (Pentose Shunt). If that's the case it would be the first confirmation. It requires some more digging, might come back to it.

Update (24-May-09)

Adding some references for the record:

R.W. Stout, The Lancet, 1968,1969
Paper 1 and 2





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