By: Robert C. Cupelo, MD Principal Investigator
For everyone involved in neurological disease research, the last two years have brought about major advances in our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative disorders. Along with the discovery of new avenues for effective therapies, we now have, for the first time, proven disease modifying treatments. And as we acquire more options shown to be effective, we look forward to applying these tools and developing regimens not only to treat this disease, but also to prevent the very onset of its clinical manifestations.
But when it comes to the area of metabolic disorders and their role in causing cardiovascular disease, science is in an historical phase ahead. As someone who started his medical training in the late 1970s, I can attest to the lack of effective, convenient, and tolerable treatments for conditions like diabetes and hyperlipidemia at that time,relegating many patients to a life with relentless symptom progression, cardiac events and frequent essentially palliative surgical procedures. I can even remember a very respected and prominent cardiovascular surgeon who could predict with uncanny but somewhat sad accuracy when his successful bypass patients would be back in the OR requiring another procedure. With limited therapeutic options available, patients often endured a poor quality of life, many experiencing a feeling of helplessness, despite valiant efforts at lifestyle modification.
The release of lovastatin (Mevacor) in 1987 changed all that. The first statin to gain FDA approval, it was the first truly effective treatment for hypercholesterolemia. Actual statistical proof that it reduced cardiovascular events and surgeries would come a little later (it’s now required for approval of these medications), but we all knew from the start that this was a game changer. It could be said that it was, in effect, the first viable disease modifying medication for coronary artery disease. And in the years since, countless pharmaceutical advances have followed, treating not just elevated LDL cholesterol, but numerous other metabolic conditions which increased risk for cardiovascular disease, such as other dyslipidemia, type II diabetes, chronic renal disease, coagulation abnormalities, obesity, and acquired diseases of myocardial function.
We at Velocity Clinical Research Syracuse embrace the study of the prevention and treatment of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases with today’s therapeutic tools and ask, “How do we best help the further development of our current available medications, and how do we promote their best use both in primary (warding off the first event) and secondary (warding off subsequent events) prevention?” The dedicated and competent staff at our research site on Brittonfield Parkway have run and are actively running several studies in multiple, areas of metabolic disorders including two studies for hypertriglyceridemia, an oral PCSK9 inhibitor for patients with hypercholesterolemia at increased cardiovascular risk (currently in maintenance phase), a long-acting basal insulin dosed weekly, an oral GLP- 1 that is more effective and tolerable than currently available options, and several classes of injectable weight loss medications, assessing not only their efficacy with weight loss but also the metabolic consequences of the therapy.
As always, clinical research studies are fluid in nature, often starting and ending enrollment somewhat suddenly and unpredictably. So, if you have any interest in participating in this research, or would just like to know more about it, we encourage you to call us to learn of our latest developments. We can also keep you up to date on our ongoing efforts to study Alzheimer’s disease, another core focus at our site. Indeed, we look to a vision of the future when, just as we now have with metabolic disorders, we will have numerous and varied options available to people at risk of dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.
At Velocity Syracuse, we encourage our Central New York medical community colleagues to keep us in mind as a dynamic and viable partner in your efforts to provide preventative care and treatment to your patients, including ones at elevated cardiovascular risk. And as always, we especially seek people from diverse backgrounds and those who are traditionally underserved, as they can potentially benefit in many ways from participation in clinical research. A culture of inclusion is especially vital to the accuracy and validity of our results.
Heart disease is still the number one cause of death for Americans, but our health care system has been making progress on this for quite a few years now. Let us at Velocity Clinical Research Syracuse help you and your patients keep that ball rolling.
