Featured Investigator

Research Description:

Dr. Bachmann is an endocrinologist and clinical researcher, and currently holds a VA Career Development Award.  Dr. Bachmann’s overall research interest is in Obesity and obesity-induced cardiometabolic dysfunction.  Dr. Bachmann and colleagues recently published a manuscript characterizing “real-world” prescription patterns of Type 2 diabetes medications in over 600,000 adult patients nationwide in a novel datasource, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet). Their work was highlighted in the VUMC Reporter.  In addition, for her clinical study for her career development award, Dr. Bachmann is investigating the differences in adipose tissue profiles and natriuretic peptide hormones between obese and lean individuals. Natriuretic peptide hormones are known to protect against obesity and insulin resistance in animal models.  Conversely, humans with genetic variants that lead to lower natriuretic peptide levels have higher risk of hypertension, diabetes, and adverse cardiac remodeling.  Still, the concept of whether a deficiency of natriuretic peptide hormones exist in humans has not been well-defined. This led Dr. Bachmann and colleagues to use Vanderibilt Synthetic Deriviative (deidentified electronic medical record) to determine whether there is evidence for the existence of natriuretic peptide hormone deficiency  In their recently published work , Dr. Bachmann and colleagues found evidence of individuals with inappropriately low BNP levels. Their work support the possible existence of NP deficiency in a subset of patients with cardiac dysfunction.  This work has important implications, and Dr. Bachmann continues to investigate the question of whether a relative “deficiency” of natriuretic peptide hormones may contribute to obesity and other adverse metabolic consequences.