Drug used in diabetics may save patients with pulmonary fibrosis

Muscle fibrosis is a rare disease that can be triggered by countless reasons like chemotherapy, bacterial infections, smoking among others.

Its treatment is very difficult to point out since it depends specifically on each particular case, however, this is a problem without cure and the limited treatment options “aim to help control the disease, preventing or slowing its progression , maintaining the capacity to perform activities of daily living and quality of life, “as the Portuguese Lung Foundation explains.

Contrary to the idea hitherto believed, a study published in Nature Medicine and developed by a group of researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham points out that a drug commonly used for non-insulin dependent diabetics may be able to reverse the scar in the organ , called pulmonary fibrosis.

It does so directly in cell metabolism by changing anabolism, a process by which simple molecules give rise to more complex ones, by catabolism, the cell’s degradation process, in this case, to destroy the cells that are generating thickening and stiffness in the Pulmonary tissue is superior to what is supposed to, which undermines the success in bringing oxygen to all the organs that part of the lungs, as well as releasing the carbon dioxide collected from them and that should be expelled.

The proposed therapy seems effective, although it has only passed the test stage in laboratory animals.