Moving Research into Action
 Ken Walsh: Protecting the Heart
Many of us think of fat as the lard-like stuff that expands our waistlines. But according to Ken Walsh, a biochemist at the BU Medical Center’s Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute, fat is also an organ that pumps out a variety of chemical messengers. Walsh has spent the last few years trying to understand how these chemicals affect our bodies, and his current work focuses on a particular chemical, called adiponectin, that may protect the heart and blood vessels.
While fat stores energy, it also produces a wide variety of hormones. Some stimulate the immune system, protecting against infection, but excess fat may produce inflammation, giving rise to a state in which the immune system is constantly revving its engine.
Adiponectin is one hormone produced by fat cells that helps prevent inflammation. Curiously, levels of adiponectin for unknown reasons are inversely proportional to fat levels—that is, obese people have low levels of the hormone and lean people have high levels. Studies in mice have shown that low adiponectin levels are not simply associated with heart disease but actually help cause it.
With his Coulter award Walsh is investigating possible clinical uses for adiponectin. One promising possibility is as a treatment to reduce the injury to heart tissue associated with heart attacks, also known as myocardial infarctions. Studies have shown that a one-time administration of adiponectin immediately following a myocardial infarction will significantly minimize damage and improve heart function in experimental models. Walsh is currently working with colleagues at Boston University to search for other molecules that function in a similar way.
Walsh credits much of the success of his research to the interdisciplinary and stimulating environment at the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute. “Here,” he says, “walls practically don’t exist.”
— by Trina Arpin |
