- Really positive. And an acknowledgement that we have discovered something that others also find important, says Sofia Enhörning, who is doing here research at Emergency Centre and Lund University Research Centre at SUS in Malmö.
The SSSD gives out two prizes to younger researcher per year. One for the best published article within experimental diabetes research and one within the clinical area. Sofia Enhörning´s article, which were published in the reseptected journal Circulation last year, have a clear clinical focus.
- We have discovered a whole new hormonal system lonked to diabetes which could be the starting point for a new way of treating the disease, says Sofia Enhörning.
The research group has shown that high levels of the salt- and water regulated hormone vasopressin means a two to three and a half times higher risk for a future onset of diabetes compared to low levels.
Moreover, the high levels of vaspressin occur long before the blood sugar has begin to increase.
- It means that the discovery partly could be developed to a test to early identify individuals who has high risk to develop the disease, partly to give a possibility to predict or treat diabetes through affect the level of vasopressin.
Since the levels also are elevated at different heart diseases the research group suspects that the hormone is a treatable link between diabetes and the increased risk of heart diseases that diabetic patients have.
The next step is to study if it is possible to prevent diabetes and heart diseases by lowering the levels of vasopressin in the blood by life style changes, for example by a high water intake.
Aside from the honor, the prize from SSSD to a younger researcher contains of 10.000 Swedish crowns.
- It will be used to a sailing vacation in Italy this summer, says Sofia Enhörning.
The article in Circulation: