January 30, 2007, 7:25 PM CT

Weight-loss Supplement Traits

A supplement some people turn to in hopes of losing a few pounds may have some previously unknown, unsavory side effects, suggest two new studies.

Researchers studied how mice and rats responded to the supplement conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), an essential amino acid found in trace amounts primarily in beef, lamb and milk. Synthetic forms of CLA are marketed as supplements that help reduce body fat, and some manufacturers also tout CLA for reducing the risk of diabetes and certain types of cancer.

The mice and rats responded in very different ways to CLA, said Martha Belury, the lead author of both studies and an associate professor of human nutrition at Ohio State University.

Mice fed a CLA-supplemented diet lost weight very fast, but also accumulated excessive amounts of fat in their livers - a common side effect of rapid weight loss. Excessive fat accumulation in the liver is linked to insulin resistance, a hallmark of Type 2 diabetes.

Yet CLA didn't help rats lose weight they had gained prior to taking the supplement. But it effectively decreased the amount of fat that had accumulated in the animals' livers due to the weight gain. In turn, the rats were less resistant to insulin.

"Many people take CLA as a supplement in hopes of trimming body fat, and it seems to work," Belury said. "But we're not sure what else it does to the body. Studying CLA's effects in two different animal models may help us to better understand any additional effects in humans.........

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January 26, 2007, 4:27 AM CT

Role Of Appetite Hormone Mch In Insulin Production

A new Joslin Diabetes Center-led study has shown conclusively that a neuropeptide, melanin concentrating hormone (MCH), found in the brain and known for its role in increasing appetite in people, plays a role in the growth of insulin-producing beta cells and the secretion of insulin. This finding has the potential to spur the development of new therapys for diabetes that stimulate the production of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. This latest research, conducted with scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and other institutions, will appear in the February 2007 issue of Diabetes.

An earlier Joslin-led study examined the correlation between obesity and MCH, which plays a critical role in energy balance and appetite, observing an increase in the number of beta cells when MCH levels are high. This was a new finding that had not been observed before. Eventhough MCH's role in appetite control is well known, its effects on the secretion of endocrine hormones has not been fully understood.

"It's a very logical connection," says Rohit N. Kulkarni, M.D., Ph.D., investigator at Joslin Diabetes Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, who led the study. "Whenever you eat food, your body needs more insulin. When MCH induces appetite, it simultaneously increases insulin secretion from beta cells and enhances growth of beta cells. If the proteins that mediate the growth mechanism can be identified, it could lead to the development of new drugs that would enhance beta cell growth to treat type 1 and type 2 diabetes."........

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January 24, 2007, 7:56 PM CT

Discovery Of Diabetes Fighting Molecule

University of California, Riverside Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Jiayu Liao played a pivotal role in the discovery of a small molecule that has been shown to control diabetes in mice and may pave the way to the development of easier therapy for adult-onset diabetes.

This discovery was a collaboration between Liao at UC Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering and a team in the National Center for Drug Screening, Shanghai, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Science.

This key molecule, identified as Boc5, can stimulate insulin function in response to high levels of glucose as well as reduce body weight by 20 percent. The discovery of this molecule that stimulates the production of the intestinal hormone glucagon-like peptide1 (GLP1), which metabolizes glucose, has been an extremely difficult goal for scientists in both academics and the pharmaceutical industry.

Boc5 is the first small molecule activator for Class B GPCRs, which regulate hormones in a number of human physiological processes and are major targets for pharmaceutical companies. This discovery opened new revenue possibilities to support future research into small molecule interaction with Class B GPCRs in the future.

In the study, Liao and colleagues were looking for ways to sensitize sugar-metabolizing insulin by stimulating production of GLP1. Synthetic versions of this peptide have proven effective but of short duration so it had been abandoned by drug researchers.........

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January 10, 2007, 4:50 AM CT

Gene That Leads To Kidney Failure In Diabetes

A research team at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and the University of Heidelberg has proven that a gene protects some people with diabetes from developing severe kidney failure or "end-stage renal disease".

Diabetes is the leading cause of end-stage kidney disease worldwide, an illness that requires either kidney dialysis therapys or a kidney transplant for survival.

The carnosinase 1 gene, located on human chromosome 18, produces the protective factor, said Barry I. Freedman, M.D., the John H. Felts III Professor and head of the Section on Nephrology, in an article in Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation published online.

"This is a major gene that appears to be linked to development of severe diabetic kidney disease," he said.

The research team reviewed 858 subjects, including diabetic patients with end-stage kidney failure on dialysis, diabetic patients with normal kidney function, and healthy non-diabetic individuals. They confirmed that a protective form of the carnosinase 1 gene was present in greater frequency among both healthy individuals and diabetic subjects without kidney disease, in comparison to the diabetic patients on dialysis who more usually had forms of the gene that were not protective.

This discovery may lead to novel therapy strategies in susceptible diabetic patients to protect them from kidney failure and may provide a marker to determine which diabetic patients are at increased risk for future kidney disease, Freedman said.........

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December 28, 2006, 9:21 PM CT

Diabetes, Heart Associations Align Fight Against Heart Disease

In a joint statement released recently, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and American Heart Association (AHA) summarize the evidence supporting lifestyle and medical interventions that can help to prevent the development of heart disease in people with diabetes.

The statement, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association's clinical research journal Diabetes Care, outlines joint guidelines from the organizations that encourage more aggressive prevention and treatment of the risk factors that lead to heart disease, the number one killer of people with diabetes.

Traditional lifestyle changes for people with diabetes have focused on weight loss. These new joint guidelines emphasize a need for major interventions that more significantly reduce CVD risk factors. It continues to cite the importance of achieving a healthy lifestyle, based on increased physical activity, medical nutrition therapy, and weight control. In addition, the statement calls for increased medical interventions, such as the use of statins, ACE inhibitors, and other drugs to manage lipids, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels in people with diabetes. The recommendations apply equally to people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.........

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December 23, 2006, 9:45 AM CT

Groundbreaking Diabetes Treatment In Sight

A researcher is working on a ground-breading methodology to treat type-1 diabetes. He hopes that he could start early clinical trial on this new therapy in about 10 years.

Professor Elliott and his team at Living Cell Technologies are involved in research which involves injecting cells taken from neonatal piglets and coated with a gel to protect them from the human immune system.

The cells then secrete protective proteins responsible for the repair and protection of cells.

"This is a entirely new approach," Prof Elliott told the Herald yesterday.

"We know that these cells can protect the brain against the whole range of noxious toxic events.

"It occurred to me, `How about diabetes', because around each (cluster of insulin-producing cells) is a collection of nerve cells, a bit like a mini-brain. They have the same sort of insulating cells and nerve plexuses that the brain has.

"I knew from other people's work that that's the site where the attack starts on insulin-producing cells, in the nerve tissue.

"I thought, `Maybe we can protect that and prevent diabetes'. That's the way it's panned out in the mouse."

Work is now being done on perfecting the technique by finding the right dose and the right age at which to administer it.........

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December 23, 2006, 9:28 AM CT

Is Trans Fat Ban Enough?

You might have read in the news that recently New York City passed a law to phase out the use of trans fat in restaurants. It is rumored that other cities, including Boston and Chicago, might follow the lead. The question is it enough? Experts say that it is one step in the right direction, but insist that lot more to be done. I tend to agree with them.

Alice H. Lichtenstein, DSc, Gershoff is a professor of nutrition science and policy at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science. She says that ban is a step in the right direction, but restaurateurs need to replace partially hydrogenated fat with unsaturated fat. If they choose saturated fat it would diminish the health benefits of this new initiative. Another new regulation that requires some restaurants to provide calorie information as prominently as price might be even more important, notes Lichtenstein.

"There is no biological need for trans fat and intake is associated with adverse health outcomes. However, the media attention on the trans fat announcement to the exclusion of the calorie labeling is unfortunate. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has proposed that the calorie content of food items be displayed as prominently as the price, at the point of purchase," says Lichtenstein, also director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts.........

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December 16, 2006, 9:06 AM CT

Managing Sugar To Managing Healing

Insulin is a hormone known primarily for regulating sugar levels in the blood, yet scientists at the University of California, Riverside, recently observed that applying insulin directly to skin wounds significantly enhanced the healing process.

Skin wounds in rats treated topically with insulin healed faster"surface cells in the epidermis covered the wound more quickly and cells in the dermis, the deeper part of the skin, were faster in rebuilding blood vessels.

In follow-up studies of human skin cells in culture, Manuela Martins-Green and his colleagues explored the molecular impact of topical insulin on keratinocytes, the cells that regenerate the epidermis after wounding, and on microvascular endothelial cells, the cells that restore blood flow.

Using various cell and molecular techniques, the scientists discovered that insulin stimulates human keratinocytes in culture to proliferate and migrate. In cultured human microvascular endothelial cells, the insulin stimulates only migration into the wound tissue. The insulin works by switching on cellular signaling proteins called kinases (specifically Src, PI3K, and Akt) and a protein (SREBP) that binds elements in DNA that regulate the production of cholesterol and its relatives.

Chronic or nonhealing wounds take an immense toll on American health and on health care systems. It especially affects millions of patients with impaired mobility, as well as those with diabetes. Because diabetes is a disease caused by impaired production or utilization of insulin, this work may help explain the correlation between diabetes and poor healing.........

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December 16, 2006, 8:58 AM CT

Reversing Type 1 Diabetes In Mice

New data reported in the Nov. 24 issue of Science provide further support for a protocol to reverse type 1 diabetes in mice and new evidence that adult precursor cells from the spleen can contribute to the regeneration of beta cells. In 2001 and 2003, scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) demonstrated the efficacy of a protocol to reverse of type 1 diabetes in diabetic mice. Three studies from other institutions reported in the March 24, 2006 issue of Science confirmed that the MGH-developed protocol can reverse the underlying disease but were inconclusive on the role of spleen cells in the recovery of insulin-producing pancreatic islets. The new data from a study performed at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), published as a technical comment, provides additional confirmation of the ability to reverse type 1 diabetes and on the role of the spleen cells in islet regeneration.

"This data from the NIH and the earlier studies have added significantly to the understanding of how diabetes may be reversed," says Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director of the Immunobiology Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, primary author of the 2001 and 2003 studies and co-corresponding author of the current report. "It is still early, but it appears that there are multiple potential sources for regenerating islets. As a research community we should pursue all avenues. We're excited to see what will happen in humans."........

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December 16, 2006, 8:53 AM CT

Panic Attacks In Diabetic Patients

There is a strong link between panic episodes and increased complications from diabetes, as per a research studyconducted at Group Health Cooperative, a Seattle-based nonprofit health care system that coordinates care and coverage. The work appears in the recent issue of General Hospital Psychiatry,.

The scientists surveyed patients with diabetes about their symptoms, disability, social and emotional function, and quality of life. They also collected data on the patients' blood sugar levels, diabetic complications, and other illnesses.

The team had previously reported a strong link between diabetes and depression, which often goes along with panic disorders. They were interested in examining panic independently, however, to see whether patients who have panic without depression would also have poor diabetic outcomes.

"Panic attacks can mimic episodes of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), so we need a better understanding of how the two conditions are related," explained Evette Ludman, PhD, lead author of the article and a research associate at Group Health. "We don't want people adjusting their blood sugar thinking they are having hypoglycemia when their symptoms are actually caused by a panic disorder".

Of the 4,385 patients surveyed, 193 reported experiencing recent episodes of panic or fear that caused them to change their immediate behavior. After accounting for the effect of depression, panic episodes were linked to higher blood sugar levels, increased diabetic complications and symptoms, greater disability, and lower self-rated health and functioning.........

Posted by: Ken      Permalink         Source