Generous funding from the Raymond E Purves Foundation will support innovative research to identify how osteoarthritis causes cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$100,000 will go towards Dr Cindy Shu to continue her valuable project to better define the link between osteoarthritis and heart disease, and inform improved treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly 2.5 million Australians currently suffer from osteoarthritis, with the disabling condition contributing to pain and loss of independence, and directly costing the healthcare system at least $3.75 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is no cure for the condition, and existing treatments have limited benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Shu said we believe the impact of this disease goes much further, and is responsible for a two-fold increase in the risk of heart disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cStudies have shown osteoarthritis is an independent risk factor that can\u2019t be explained by the known causes of heart disease like diet, hypertension and lack of exercise,\u201d Dr Shu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis suggests the current approaches to reducing cardiovascular disease risk through weight loss for instance, won\u2019t effectively alter the risk of heart disease from osteoarthritis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is an urgent need to better define the pathophysiology of the osteoarthritis-heart disease link, and to identify new, effective treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hoped this approach will not only help reduce chronic pain, but the incidence of heart disease and its devastating impact on individuals and the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe greatly appreciate the significant funds and support from the Raymond E Purves Foundation to allow this crucial research to continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe hope it will broaden our understanding of this common and painful condition, and its potentially deadly effect,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1617,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"research-group-tax":[],"primary-research-area":[],"class_list":["post-1616","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsletters"],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/root_Blog_Dr-Cindy-Shu-scaled.jpg",2560,1738,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/root_Blog_Dr-Cindy-Shu-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/root_Blog_Dr-Cindy-Shu-300x204.jpg",300,204,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/root_Blog_Dr-Cindy-Shu-768x521.jpg",768,521,true],"large":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/root_Blog_Dr-Cindy-Shu-1024x695.jpg",1024,695,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/root_Blog_Dr-Cindy-Shu-1536x1043.jpg",1536,1043,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/root_Blog_Dr-Cindy-Shu-2048x1390.jpg",2048,1390,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"ict-wordpress-support@sydney.edu.au","author_link":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/author\/ict-wordpress-supportsydney-edu-au\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Generous funding from the Raymond E Purves Foundation will support innovative research to identify how osteoarthritis causes cardiovascular disease. $100,000 will go towards Dr Cindy Shu to continue her valuable project to better define the link between osteoarthritis and heart disease, and inform improved treatment. Nearly 2.5 million Australians currently suffer from osteoarthritis, with the…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/1616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/1616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5299,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/1616\/revisions\/5299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1616"},{"taxonomy":"research-group-tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-group-tax?post=1616"},{"taxonomy":"primary-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/primary-research-area?post=1616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}