Researchers from leading biotech company Nightingale Health have successfully studied a new genetic marker (GlycA) for chronic inflammation, with their proprietary blood testing technology and have linked the marker to the risk of reduction in lifespan and some organ related diseases. Aiming towards separating fact from fiction, researchers have been increasingly immersing themselves in efforts to clarify links between disease and inflammation.
With growing emphasis on chronic inflammation in the field of health and wellness, on its role in physical and mental health issues ranging from heart disease to anxiety, researchers have also been increasingly focusing their attention between inflammation and organ related diseases. Towards this end, Nightingale’s blood testing technology which can accurately measure glycoprotein acetyls or GlycA is found to be a stable marker to be used for accurate diagnosis.
What is Glycoprotein Acetyls (GlycA)?
Glycoprotein acetyls, also known as GlycA is a newly discovered biomarker based on the principle of nuclear magnetic resonance. It provides healthcare professionals indications with regards to inflammation by displaying the number of n-acetyl groups that can be found in glycoproteins within the body.
If high levels of glycoprotein acetyls are found in a healthy body, it can strongly indicate a highly active response to the immune system towards issues such as a strong bacterial infection. In cases where low grade, chronic inflammation can be observed, glycoprotein acetyls could mark the increased risk of a host of diseases that might affect the internal organs. This makes it a crucial fixture in the field of public research on health in the coming years.
GlycA has been found to be a highly useful marker for preventive measures and timely treatments for chronic inflammation related health issues, and also in the early identification of high risk patients from other relatively healthy counterparts, particularly for life threatening health issues such as diabetes-mellitus type 2 or cardiovascular disease.
Glycoprotein acetyls can also be associated with a broad range of incident diseases and it can be used to find the accurate level of risk of reduced lifespan in patients who have gone through an angiography process.
GlycA to Act as Major Factor in Disease Predictions
In a recent study which sought to find out if GlycA can be used effectively to predict the risk of diseases among general population, scientists measured GlycA levels in the blood of 11,861 Finnish subjects in conjunction with their electronic health records. The results revealed that increased levels of GlycA could be linked to major organ related diseases including chronic renal failure, heart disease, and alcoholic liver disease. In regards to identifying risk of reduced life expectancy, the results also showed that measuring GlycA raised the chances of identifying patients who were at the risk of cardio-vascular disease related mortality by as much as five times.
Dr. Peter Wurtz, the Scientific Director at Nightingale Health stated that GlycA has been found to have significant potential to predict the onset of several diseases as a marker for chronic inflammation in a large number of studies, each with thousands of human subjects. The findings from the latest research from Nightingale Healthcare will provide great importance to the analysis of more than 500,000 samples GlycA in national UK bio-bank and other clinical applications worldwide, which is anticipated to provide a greater understanding about these genetic links.
Traditional blood tests measure very limited markers including cholesterol and glucose, while Nightingale’s blood test procedure does a whole lot more by analyzing 220 bio markers, thereby enhancing the capabilities of predicting the risk of diseases more accurately.