Diabetes treatment also stops sepsis, study finds
Aruni Bhatnagar, Ph.D.
A drug developed to treat diabetes also can stop sepsis, a severe and often fatal reaction of the immune system to infection, a University of Louisville researcher has found.
The drug, sorbinil, appears to block an enzyme that throws the body into overdrive to fight infection, said cardiology professor Aruni Bhatnagar, Ph.D.
Sepsis occurs when the immune system shifts into high gear, causing widespread inflammation and driving up body temperature, breathing and heart rate.
The condition kills nearly one third of the 700,000 Americans it strikes each year.
Bhatnagar's research team found that sorbinil dramatically boosted the chance of recovery in mice with acute infections. About 40 percent of the mice treated with the drug after infection survived, while none of the untreated mice survived.
"We believe this drug holds promise for treating high-risk patients such as children, new mothers, people who undergo prolonged surgery and people with mechanical heart-assist devices," he said.
A research paper on the finding appears in the current online issue of the journal Circulation.
The team used a genetic silencing technique developed by Nobel Prize-winning scientists Andrew Fire and Craig Mello to prove that sorbinil blocks the enzyme triggering sepsis.
Future research on the enzyme could lead to new treatments for other immune disorders such as heart inflammation, hepatitis and pancreatitis, Bhatnagar said.
Scientists at University of Texas-Galveston, University of Texas-San Antonio and University of California-San Francisco also took part in the study.
