Department of Medicine

A novel molecular “conversation” regulates kidney fibrosis – the final result of end-stage chronic kidney disease – suggesting new treatment options for this currently irreversible process.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is one of four institutions that are part of a new research network aimed at preventing heart disease and stroke, the two leading causes of death in the world.

Vanderbilt investigators have demonstrated in two studies that metformin-based treatments delay the onset and progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) compared with other treatments for diabetes.

In an observational study by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, adults with type 2 diabetes who take insulin in addition to the recommended first-line drug therapy, metformin, had a 30 percent higher risk of heart attack, stroke or death when compared to similar patients who instead augment their metformin regimen with a sulfonylurea.

Dan Roden, M.D., assistant vice chancellor for Personalized Medicine, has been appointed to the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

A new study estimates that tobacco smoking has been linked to approximately 2 million deaths among adult men and women in Asia in recent years and predicts a rising death toll.

Kidney disease is the eighth most common cause of death in the United States and affects more than 20 million people, yet many people don’t know they have kidney disease because it often develops very slowly and with minimal symptoms. For this reason, kidney disease is often referred to as a silent killer.