Diabetes drug can cut heart disease risk, Dundee scientists find

From our archives 5 years ago

A DRUG commonly used to treat diabetes has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease in non-diabetic patients. Scientists at Dundee University found the diabetes drug Metformin could reverse the harmful thickening of heart muscle that leads to cardiovascular disease. The team, led by Professor Chim Lang, head of molecular and clinical medicine at Dundee, says Metformin has the potential to be repurposed as a heart disease treatment in non-diabetic patients. The “Met-remodel” trial, published yesterday in the prestigious European Heart Journal, showed that Metformin, used to treat Type 2 diabetes safely for the last six decades, reduced left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in patients with pre-diabetes and pre-existing heart disease.

10 years ago

SCOTLAND’S newest landmark, the Kelpies, has been officially unveiled with a pyrotechnic light show. Andy Scott’s 300-tonne, 98ft high horse head sculptures, have been launched at Helix Park, Falkirk, with a display by the firm which illuminated Paris’s Eiffel Tower at the millennium. The sculpture, next to the M9 between Falkirk and Grangemouth, was bathed in light, surrounded by pulsating flaming torches. The Kelpies were launched at the start of the John Muir Festival, held in honour of the Scots-born environmentalist who started the world’s national park movement.

25 years ago

PEOPLE are deciding against ozone-threatening cremations and choosing more environmentally friendly burial methods, it has been claimed. Edinburgh International Science Festival heard last night that Mr David Pescod, a Linnean Society fellow who has devoted his life to the study of death, believes the drop in cremations from 73% in the mid-1990s to 69% in 1998 is a direct result of people making greener choices. He said: “People are more aware of the effects of cremation. Whether they have actually calculated the environmental impact of different disposal methods, I don’t know, but people seem to be swayed by the principle that recycling is good for the environment and applying that principle to their own bodies.”

50 years ago

A walkway beside the river Clyde is to be part of a development of 350 houses to be built for Glasgow Corporation on the site of the former Harland and Wolff shipyard in Govan. A housing sub-committee yesterday recommended that a tender based on detailed costs should be negotiated with George Wimpey and Co, Ltd. An estimate showed that the 350 houses would cost more than £3.5m, an average of £10,124 a house. The project, on a 30-acre site which has been derelict for many years, will include play spaces for children, landscape amenity areas, and extensive car parking.

100 years ago

IN view of the celebration this year of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Tannahill, the Paisley poet, strong efforts are being made in the town to revive the Glen Concert. This concert, which in former years was held at Gleniffer Braes, has not taken place since pre-war days, when it was one of the most popular events of the summer. Provost Glover recently made an appeal to the president of Paisley Choral Union, Mr Thomas Hunter, to arrange for the holding of a Glen Concert on the first Saturday in June to mark the anniversary of Tannahill’s birth.