A drug used to lower cholesterol and help prevent cardiovascular disease may help improve bone healing, shows a new animal model based study.
A new animal model based study has found that a drug used to lower cholesterol may also help in healing bones.
Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics said that the finding of the drug Lovastatin as a booster will be of great interest to NF1 patients and their physicians.
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Cholesterol is produced by the body (liver) and is essential for normal body functioning.
Cholesterol is produced by the body (liver) and is essential for normal body functioning.
Many NF1 patients suffer from bowing, spontaneous fractures and pseudarthrosis (incomplete healing) of the tibias (shinbones).
Mateusz Kolanczyk from Stefan Mundlos' laboratory in the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, led a team that examined lovastatin's ability to prevent pseudarthrosis in a new animal model of human NF1 disease.
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The gallbladder is a small pear-shaped organ that stores and concentrates bile Gallstones are crystalline stones that form inside the gall bladder or bile duct.
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To better understand this problem, Kolanczyk and his colleagues developed this mouse model.
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High cholesterol level in blood are a risk for heart disease and stroke. They get deposited in the wall of the arteries and clog the circulation posing a threat to life.
High cholesterol level in blood are a risk for heart disease and stroke. They get deposited in the wall of the arteries and clog the circulation posing a threat to life.
The researchers drilled a 0.5mm hole in the tibia of anaesthetised mice.
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Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery (CABG) is performed to restore the blood supply to areas of heart that have been reduced or has no blood supply due to blockage in the artery.
Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery (CABG) is performed to restore the blood supply to areas of heart that have been reduced or has no blood supply due to blockage in the artery.
The process of bone repair was examined 7, 14 and 28 days post-injury.
The researchers found that the mice given the statin treatment had marked improvements in bone healing compared to the control animals.
"Lovastatin appears to accelerate cortical bone repair primarily by enhancing new bone formation within the bone marrow cavity and by replacing fibro-cartilaginous tissue in the injury site with mineralised bone matrix," the authors said.
"Our results suggest the usefulness of lovastatin, a drug approved in 1987 for the treatment of high cholesterol, in the treatment of neurofibromatosis-related fracture healing abnormalities," Kolanczyk said.
The study is published in the open access journal BMC Medicine.
Source-ANI
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