Research carried out by a 21-year-old medical student could prove a life-saver for diabetes sufferers at greater risk of heart attacks, strokes and amputations.

Kyle Gibson, a third-year medical student at Edinburgh University, has been carrying out research into the drug N-acetylcysteine, which is mainly used to reverse the effects of paracetamol overdoses.

He discovered that the drug can be used to help control the "sticky" blood which is common in patients with diabetes and can lead to blood clots resulting in heart attacks, strokes and blocked arteries in the legs.

The work has been so promising that Scottish Health Innovations Ltd has agreed to fund a patent application and the next level of testing.

The original research, carried out in Inverness, was supported by the UHI Millennium Institute (formerly the University of the Highlands and Islands project) and NHS Highland.

Mr Gibson has been working under the supervision of Professor Ian Megson, UHI's LifeScan chair of diabetes, and Professor Sandra MacRury, consultant diabetologist and endocrinologist at Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, and clinical professor of diabetes at UHI.

She said: "We currently recommend that most people with type two diabetes over the age of about 40 should be taking aspirin to help reduce the tendency for increased stickiness in the blood and to prevent vascular complications which are high in diabetes.

"While aspirin is a safe drug, there can be side-effects and any new therapy which can have the same or even greater benefits would be particularly important.

"This research is a very exciting development for people with diabetes."

More than 2.3 million people in the UK have diabetes, while up to another 750,000 are sufferers, but don't know it. Scotland has more than 200,000 people with diabetes.

About 80% of diabetes sufferers die from a heart-related and are 15 times more likely to undergo leg amputation because arteries have become blocked.

Mr Gibson, who is from Edinburgh, made his breakthrough while working on an industrial placement at the UHI.