Research summary
As people live longer, rates of age-related diseases-such as atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and Alzheimer’s disease-are steadily increasing. A common feature of these illnesses is damage to the blood vessel lining in body tissues and organs. For years, we haven’t had the right tools to understand this problem. But as Canada Research Chair in Mechanisms of Health and Disease, Dr. Newman Sze is trying to change that.
Sze has already invented new ways to investigate how the blood vessel lining degrades over time. Now, he and his research team are testing whether lifestyle and dietary changes can reduce damage to the blood vessel lining and, ultimately, whether drugs that target this damage can prevent many common diseases linked to age.