Chronic inflammation has become a medical hot topic as more and more research reports that is involved in many of the most prevalent diseases.
In an interview with Diario Medico (Medical Journal), Antonio Zorzano, researcher at Biomedical Research Networking Centers on Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Disorders (Ciberdem) at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Barcelona and professor at the University of Barcelona, explains that “recently the scientific community has demonstrated the importance of inflammation in many diseases. However, we know little about the elements that trigger it and specific mechanisms that occur in different tissues leading to various inflammatory responses. “
To understand more deeply chronic inflammation, Zorzano launched the ‘Inflames’ study, which aims to identify the mechanisms involved in inflammatory processes related to three conditions: obesity, type 2 diabetes and Crohn’s disease. “The ultimate goal is to obtain new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of these diseases, and for this we will focus efforts on identifying which are the new elements that trigger chronic low-grade inflammation occurring in people with any of these three diseases. One of our main hypotheses is that there must be a flow of information between gut flora and certain deposits of adipose tissue, which play a fundamental role in the progress and development of these diseases,” he said.
The expected duration of this research is three years and will be implemented in three stages: “The first stage is to make a large clinical study in which inflammatory parameters will be studied as well as the microbiome of obese individuals and diabetics type 2 and also in patients with Crohn’s disease. This phase of the research will take approximately a year and a half and is expected, in turn, propitiates epidemiological and molecular studies that will be developed over 18 months. “
As a result of these investigations, the researchers hope to identify new actors responsible for inflammation in these three diseases. “If these elements allow a pharmacological approach, the results obtained from this project will be the starting point for the development of new drugs,” said the expert.
‘Inflames’ is a collaboration of different research groups of Biomedical Research Networking Centers: Ciberdem and the Liver and Digestive Diseases (Ciberehd), the Pathophysiology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBERobn) and Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP). “This teamwork will allow a deep knowledge in these three diseases from the point of clinical, basic and epidemiological” said Zorzano.
Through: Diario Medico
