The Top Ten Medical Breakthroughs of 2011
Coming in at number 10 is a simple blood test that may be able to predict who is most likely to die of heart disease or cancer. In August researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden revealed that after a 12-year study of nearly 2,000 people, researchers discovered that people with higher levels of an enzyme named cathepsin S were more likely to die of heart disease than those who exhibited lower levels of the enzyme. This enzymes main function is to help break up certain proteins and tends to be higher in people with heart issues or tumors and could be a possible contributor to atherosclerosis. Researchers found Cathepsin S is abundant in fat tissue, which isn`t too much of a surprise given that being overweight is a risk factor for heart trauma. Though it is unclear of how this enzyme contributes to cancer and exactly how it contributes to heart disease, pharmaceutical companies are already hard at work to create a compound that might block its effects.
