For the first time, Klotho has been linked to kidney disease in type 1 diabetes patients and this finding represents an exciting step towards developing new markers for disease and potentially new treatments.
First author of the study, Dr Giuseppe Maltese, School of Cardiovascular Medicine & Sciences
15 February 2017
'Anti-ageing' hormone could unlock new treatments for kidney and heart disease
A new study by researchers at King’s College London has found that patients with diabetes suffering from the early stages of kidney disease have a deficiency of the protective ‘anti-ageing’ hormone, Klotho.
The study, published today in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes [EASD]), suggests that Klotho may play a significant role in the development of kidney disease, which is often prevalent in patients with diabetes.
This could mean that Klotho levels have the potential to be used as a risk marker to predict kidney disease, as well as being a target for developing new treatments to prevent kidney disease in patients with type 1 diabetes.
Previous work undertaken at King’s has also shown that Klotho protects the vascular system against changes associated with abnormal ageing, such as the thickening of artery walls (atherosclerosis), which characterises age related disorders such as diabetes, heart disease and hypertension.
In this study, scientists tested blood and urine samples from 78 patients with type 1 diabetes of which 33 also showed signs of the early stages of diabetic kidney disease, called microalbuminuria.
They found that patients with microalbuminuria had lower levels of the circulating Klotho hormone, compared with patients without microalbuminuria. Klotho levels in patients without microalbuminuria were similar to levels found in healthy adults.
With further research using larger cohorts of patients with type 1 and 2 diabetes we hope to expand the scope of this work to identify at an early stage patients at high risk of progression of kidney disease and cardiovascular disease.
Senior author, Dr Janaka Karalliedde
This study highlights the important clinical and basic science research that is being undertaken on Klotho at King’s. Our research will help scientists to better understand the mechanisms by which this hormone benefits healthy ageing, as well as how deficits in Klotho lead to age related diseases. We are conducting further research on the role of Klotho in ageing and longevity as part of ARK (Ageing Research at King’s) research initiatives.
Dr Richard Siow, a co-author of the study, recently published research which showed the protective effects of Klotho in cardiovascular cells
Limitations of this study include its relatively small and selective sample size and the cross-sectional design, which is unable to identify a causal relationship between Klotho and development of kidney disease.
The paper ‘Peturbations of the anti-ageing hormone Klotho in patients with type 1 diabetes and microalbuminuria’ is published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes [EASD]) on 13 February 2017. DOI 10.1007/s00125-017-4219-1
Microalbuminuria is a term first used in the 1960s by researchers at Guy’s Hospital Medical School (now part of King’s) to describe a moderate increase in the level of albumin (a protein made in the liver) in urine, which occurs as a result of improper filtration in the kidneys and is a sign of early stage kidney disease and vascular disease.
Dr Richard Siow is Coordinator of Ageing Research at King’s (ARK) and Senior Lecturer in the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence.