"Amy Bies was recovering in the hospital from injuries inflicted during a car accident in May 2007 when routine laboratory tests showed that her blood glucose and cholesterol were both dangerously high. Doctors ultimately sent her home with prescriptions for two standard drugs, metformin for what turned out to be type 2 diabetes and a statin to control her cholesterol levels and the heart disease risk they posed."
"The combo, however, didn't prevent a heart attack in 2013. And by 2019 she was on 12 different prescriptions to manage her continued high cholesterol and her diabetes and to reduce her heart risk. The resulting cocktail left her feeling so terrible that she considered going on medical leave from work. I couldn't even get through my day. I was so nauseated, she said. I would come out to my car in my lunch hour and pray that I could just not do this anymore."
Cardio-kidney-metabolic syndrome connects cardiovascular disease, kidney dysfunction, and metabolic disorders through common biological pathways. Dysfunctional adipose tissue drives inflammation, insulin resistance, and lipid abnormalities that damage the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, and pancreas. Injury to one organ promotes pathology in the others, forming a feedback loop that accelerates multi-organ decline. Conventional single-disease therapies can produce heavy polypharmacy and persistent symptoms. Growing recognition of the syndrome supports integrated prevention, coordinated multidisciplinary care, and development of therapies that target shared molecular drivers to reduce overlapping disease burden and medication-related harms.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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