Diabetes Watch Blog

March 28, 2011, 8:11 AM CT

Nicotine as main culprit in diabetes complications

Scientists today reported the first strong evidence implicating nicotine as the main culprit responsible for persistently elevated blood sugar levels � and the resulting increased risk of serious health complications � in people who have diabetes and smoke. In a presentation at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), they said the discovery also may have implications for people with diabetes who are using nicotine-replacement therapy for extended periods in an attempt to stop smoking.

"This is an important study," said Xiao-Chuan Liu, Ph.D., who presented the results. "It is the first study to establish a strong link between nicotine and diabetes complications. If you're a smoker and have diabetes, you should be concerned and make every effort to quit smoking".

Nearly 26 million people in the United States and 260 million more worldwide have diabetes. Those complications � which include heart attacks, stroke, kidney failure, and nerve damage � are why diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, and the third leading cause in some minority groups, according to the National Institutes of Health. Treating those complications takes $1 out of every $10 spent on health care each year.

Liu cited past research showing that good control of blood sugar levels is the key to preventing complications. The gold standard for monitoring long-term blood sugar levels in people with diabetes is the hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) blood test. Used in conjunction with daily home blood sugar monitoring, the HbA1c test reveals the average amount of sugar in the blood during the last several weeks. High test results mean that diabetes is not well controlled and there is an increased risk of complications......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

March 15, 2011, 10:14 PM CT

Helping Diabetes Patients

People with diabetes could be helped by a new type of self-monitoring blood glucose sensor being developed by ASU engineers and clinicians at Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

More than 23 million people in the United States have diabetes. The disease is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. It contributes to a higher risk for heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, lower extremity amputations and other chronic conditions.

A number of people with diabetes are tasked with the difficulty of managing their blood glucose levels. It's recommended that they monitor their own glucose levels, but current monitoring devices typically require patients to perform the painful task of pricking their finger to draw blood for a test sample - and a number of patients must do it several times each day.

The new sensor would enable people to draw tear fluid from their eyes to get a glucose-level test sample.

Glucose in tear fluid may give an indication of glucose levels in the blood as accurately as a test using a blood sample, the scientists say.

"The problem with current self-monitoring blood glucose technologies is not so much the sensor," says Jeffrey T. LaBelle, a bioengineer. "It's the painful finger prick that makes people reluctant to perform the test. This new technology might encourage patients to check their blood sugars more often, which could lead to better control of their diabetes by a simple touch to the eye"......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

February 24, 2011, 7:56 AM CT

Fatty liver and Type 2 diabetes

A recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) observed that individuals with fatty liver were five times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those without fatty liver. This higher risk seemed to occur regardless of the patient's fasting insulin levels, which were used as a marker of insulin resistance.

In recent years, fatty liver has become more appreciated as a sign of obesity and resistance to insulin, a hormone that controls the body's glucose levels. This newly released study shows that fatty liver appears to be more than an indicator of obesity but may actually have an independent role in the development of type 2 diabetes.

"A number of patients and practitioners view fat in the liver as just 'fat in the liver,' but we think that a diagnosis of fatty liver should raise an alarm for impending type 2 diabetes," said Sun Kim, MD, of Stanford University in Calif. and senior author of the study. "Our study shows that fatty liver, as diagnosed by ultrasound, strongly predicts the development of type 2 diabetes regardless of insulin concentration".

In this study, scientists examined 11,091 Koreans who had a medical assessment including fasting insulin concentration and abdominal ultrasound at baseline and had a follow-up after five years. Regardless of baseline insulin concentration, individuals with fatty liver had significantly more metabolic abnormalities including higher glucose and triglyceride concentration and lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (sometimes called "good cholesterol") concentration. Individuals with fatty liver also had a significantly increased risk for type 2 diabetes compare to those without fatty liver......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

February 20, 2011, 11:59 AM CT

brain insulin plays critical role in the development of diabetes

Scientists from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have discovered a novel function of brain insulin, indicating that impaired brain insulin action appears to be the cause of the unrestrained lipolysis that initiates and worsens type 2 diabetes in humans. The research is published this month in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Led by Christoph Buettner, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the research team first infused a tiny amount of insulin into the brains of rats and then assessed glucose and lipid metabolism in the whole body. In doing so, they observed that brain insulin suppressed lipolysis, a process during which triglycerides in fat are broken down and fatty acids are released.

Furthermore, in mice that lacked the brain insulin receptor, lipolysis was unrestrained. While fatty acids are important energy sources during fasting, they can worsen diabetes, particularly when they are released after the person has eaten, as happens in people with diabetes. Scientists previously believed that insulin's ability to suppress lipolysis was entirely mediated through insulin receptors expressed on adipocytes, or fat tissue cells.

"We knew that insulin has this fundamentally important ability of suppressing lipolysis, but the finding that this is mediated in a large part by the brain is surprising," said Dr. Buettner. "The major lipolysis-inducing pathway in our bodies is the sympathetic nervous system and here the studies showed that brain insulin reduces sympathetic nervous system activity in fat tissue. In patients who are obese or have diabetes, insulin fails to inhibit lipolysis and fatty acid levels are increased. The low-grade inflammation throughout the body's tissue that is usually present in these conditions is thought to bemainly a consequence of these increased fatty acid levels"......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

February 15, 2011, 7:50 AM CT

New Devices to Help Control Diabetes

There are more than 21 million diabetics in the United States and most of them control diabetes for many hours every day. People must maintain blood sugar levels as much as possible. However, it requires testing; proper maintenance and eating foods that can help them achieve their goal of controlling the signs of diabetes. For a lot of diabetics, controlling their blood sugar is not an easy task and they must maintain a daily routine of insulin injections, painful finger sticking and glucose tests.

Most of the people who are suffering from diabetes spend less than 30 percent of the day in controlling their blood sugars. Finger sticking is one of the processes that they need to do every day. However, it is really painful so people tend to look for other alternatives. Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM), which is developed by Medtronics, can help people with their problems. This gadget allows continuous reading throughout the day making it easy for them to make a decision to respond to the reading. However, they will still need to use finger stick if they feel that they need additional insulin.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first combination of CGM and insulin pump, MiniMed Paradigm REAL of Medtronics, in April 2006. According to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, it is a significant step on one of its major research priorities. It is the development of the artificial pancreas that will measure glucose automatically and deliver insulin if needed. It will not only monitor the glucose level of the user, it can also dose the patient with specific amount of insulin to respond to adverse readings given by the monitor......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

January 16, 2011, 10:17 PM CT

Taking more steps every day

Simply taking more steps every day not only helps ward off obesity but also reduces the risk of diabetes, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

While several studies have shown that physical activity reduces body mass index and insulin resistance - an early stage in the development of diabetes - this is the first study to estimate the effects of long-term changes in daily step count on insulin sensitivity.

A popular guideline is to do 10,000 steps every day, though a more recent recommendation is 3,000 steps, five days a week.

The research, by the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, involved 592 middle aged adults who took part in a national study to map diabetes levels across Australia between 2000 and 2005.

At the start of the study, participants completed a detailed diet and lifestyle questionnaire and underwent a thorough health examination. They were also given a pedometer and instructed how to use it. Participants were monitored again five years later.

Other lifestyle factors, such as diet, alcohol and smoking were taken into account.

A higher daily step count over five years was linked to a lower body mass index, lower waist to hip ratio, and better insulin sensitivity.

These associations were independent of dietary energy intake and appeared to be largely due to a change in adiposity (fatness) over the five years, say the authors......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

December 13, 2010, 7:09 AM CT

Grow your own transplant

Men with type 1 diabetes appears to be able to grow their own insulin-producing cells from their testicular tissue, say Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) scientists who presented their findings today at the American Society of Cell Biology 50th annual meeting in Philadelphia.

Their laboratory and animal study is a proof of principle that human spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) extracted from testicular tissue can morph into insulin-secreting beta islet cells normally found in the pancreas. And the scientists say they accomplished this feat without use of any of the extra genes now employed in most labs to turn adult stem cells into a tissue of choice.

"No stem cells, adult or embryonic, have been induced to secrete enough insulin yet to cure diabetes in humans, but we know SSCs have the potential to do what we want them to do, and we know how to improve their yield," says the study's lead investigator, G. Ian Gallicano, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Director of the Transgenic Core Facility at GUMC.

Given continuing progress, Gallicano says his strategy could provide a unique solution to therapy of individuals with type 1 diabetes (juvenile onset diabetes). Several novel therapies have been tried for these patients, but each has drawbacks. Transplanting islet cells from deceased donors can result in rejection, plus few such donations are available. Scientists have also cured diabetes in mice using induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells adult stem cells that have been reprogrammed with other genes to behave like embryonic stem cells but this technique can produce teratomas, or tumors, in transfected tissue, as well as problems stemming from the external genes used to create IPS cells, Gallicano says......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

December 9, 2010, 7:11 AM CT

Computer model predicts success in diabetes

A La Jolla Institute team, led by leading type 1 diabetes researcher Matthias von Herrath, M.D., has demonstrated the effectiveness of a recently developed computer model in predicting key information about nasal insulin therapy regimens in type 1 (juvenile) diabetes. Development of the software, the Type 1 Diabetes PhysioLab Platform, was funded through the peer-evaluated grant program of the American Diabetes Association.

The findings, which also showed the platform's ability to predict critical type 1 diabetes molecular "biomarkers," were reported in the recent issue of the scientific journal Diabetes, and further validate the importance of the new model as a valuable research tool in type 1 diabetes. The software is designed to enable scientists to rapidly streamline laboratory research through the assessment of alternative scenarios for therapeutic strategies that show the most promise for working in humans.

"Since laboratory studies can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and early stage human clinical trials can cost $10 million dollars or more, predicting the right conditions to try is important," said Dr. von Herrath, director of the Type 1 Diabetes Research Center at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology, where the studies were conducted......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

September 20, 2010, 7:15 AM CT

Biological clock and diabetes

Biologists have observed that a key protein that regulates the biological clocks of mammals also regulates glucose production in the liver and that altering the levels of this protein can improve the health of diabetic mice.

Their discovery, detailed in this week's advanced online publication of the journal Nature Medicine, provides an entirely new biochemical approach for researchers to develop therapys for obesity and type 2 diabetes. It also raises the interesting possibility that some of the rise in diabetes in the U.S. and other major industrialized countries could be a consequence of disturbances in sleep-wake cycles from our increasingly around-the-clock lifestyles.

"We know that mice that don't have good biological clocks tend to develop diabetes and obesity," said Steve Kay, Dean of the Division of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego and one of the main authors of the research study. "And we know that mice that have developed diabetes and obesity tend not to have very good biological clocks. This reciprocal relationship between circadian rhythm and the maintenance of a constant supply of glucose in the body had been known for some time. But what we observed that's so significant is that a particular biological clock protein, cryptochrome, is actually regulating how the hormone that regulates glucose production in the liver works in a very specific way"......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

September 9, 2010, 6:57 AM CT

Insulin May Reduce Several Inflammatory Factors

Treating intensive care patients who develop life-threatening bacterial infections, or septicemia, with insulin potentially could reduce their chances of succumbing to the infection, if results of a new preliminary study can be replicated in a larger study.

A paper published online ahead of print in Diabetes Care reports that insulin lowered the amount of inflammation and oxidative stress in study participants who had been injected with a common bacteria, or endotoxin, known as LPS (lipopolysaccharide).

The study was conducted by University at Buffalo endocrinologists at Kaleida Health's Diabetes-Endocrinology Center of Western New York.

LPS, found in the outer membrane of various gram-negative bacteria, is known to increase the ability of the bacteria to cause hemorrhage, necrosis of the kidneys and shock, particularly in immune-compromised patients.

The study involved 19 healthy subjects who were injected after an overnight fast with a dose of the endotoxin based on their weight. After the endotoxin injection, 10 participants were infused with insulin (plus dextrose to maintain normal glucose levels), and nine received saline to mimic the insulin infusion.

The infusions continued for six hours following the endotoxin injections. Participants then ate a 900 calorie meal and ate nothing else until the following morning......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

August 11, 2010, 7:42 PM CT

New diabetes risk assessment developed

A team from the University of Leicester, led by Professor Melanie Davies from the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences and Professor Kamlesh Khunti from the Department of Health Sciences, has developed an easy way for people to assess their risk of having diabetes.

Working in partnership with Diabetes UK, the largest diabetes charity in the country, and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, they have produced the first diabetes risk evaluation that can be used in a multi-ethnic population.

The Diabetes Risk Score uses 7 questions to identify how high a risk someone is of getting diabetes. These are age, ethnicity, sex, family history of diabetes, waist size, body mass index and any history or therapy for high blood pressure. Answering these does not tell someone whether they have diabetes, just what their risk of having it is. Their GP needs to be seen to provide a firm diagnosis.

Professor Davies, Honorary Consultant Clinician in Diabetes at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, said: "There are an estimated 2.6m people in England with diabetes with 500,000 of them not diagnosed. The impact of diabetes on individuals and their families can be profound. The costs to the NHS are also significant with diabetes prescriptions alone costing 500m a year. I, and my team, are proud that the Diabetes Risk Score will enable people to quickly and easily find out what their chance of having diabetes is and take action accordingly. The earlier diabetes is diagnosed the earlier effective therapy can start"......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

July 12, 2010, 6:56 AM CT

Gestational diabetes may recur in future pregnancies

There is an increased risk of recurring gestational diabetes in pregnant women who developed gestational diabetes during their first and second pregnancies, as per a Kaiser Permanente study appearing online in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

The study of 65,132 women observed that in comparison to women without gestational diabetes in their first and second pregnancies, women who developed gestational diabetes during their first but not second pregnancies had a 630 percent increased risk for developing gestational diabetes during their third pregnancy. This risk was even more pronounced 25.9-fold in the third pregnancy for women who had gestational diabetes in their first and second pregnancies.

The risk of gestational diabetes recurring was substantial among Hispanic and Asian Pacific Islander women compared with their white counterparts. Scientists also observed that in this study population, gestational diabetes was more likely to occur in women who are aged 30 and older, and had a longer interval between any two of their successive pregnancies.

Gestational diabetes mellitus, known as GDM, is defined as glucose intolerance that typically occurs during the second or third trimester of pregnancy. It causes complications in as much as seven percent of pregnancies in the United States. It can lead to early delivery, Cesarean sections and type 2 diabetes, and can increase the childs risk of developing diabetes and obesity during the later part of life......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

July 9, 2010, 6:48 AM CT

Early detection of diabetes

Having discovered a dramatic increase of an easy-to-detect enzyme in the red blood cells of people with diabetes and prediabetes, Johns Hopkins researchers say the discovery could lead to a simple, routine test for detecting the subtle onset of the disease, before symptoms or complications occur and in time to reverse its course.

Pilot studies, published online April 22 in Diabetes, show the enzyme O-GlcNAcase is up to two to three times higher in people with diabetes and prediabetes than in those with no disease: "That's a big difference, particularly in an enzyme that's as tightly regulated as this one is," says Gerald Hart, Ph.D., the DeLamar Professor and director of biological chemistry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Building on their prior research, which showed how an abundant but difficult-to-detect sugar switch known as O-GlcNAc (pronounced oh-GLICK-nack) responded to nutrients and stress, the Hopkins team knew this small molecule was elevated in the red cells of patients with diabetes. "The question was whether the elevation happened in the earliest stages of diabetes and therefore might have value as a diagnostic tool," Hart said.

To find out, Kyoungsook Park, a graduate student of biological chemistry working in Hart's lab, focused on levels of O-GlcNAcase, an enzyme that removes O-GlcNAc in red cells. O-GlcNAc modifies a number of of the cell's proteins to control their functions in response to nutrients and stress. Nutrients, such as glucose and lipids, increase the extent of O-GlcNAc modification of proteins affecting their activities. When the extent of O-GlcNAc attached to proteins becomes too high, as occurs in diabetes, it is harmful to the cell......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

July 8, 2010, 7:05 AM CT

For Women with Gestational Diabetes

A common test to diagnose gestational diabetes - a temporary condition which can harm both mother and child if left untreated - also has predictive power for Type II adult-onset diabetes, a new Tel Aviv University study finds.

Dr. Gabriel Chodick of Tel Aviv University's Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine has proven that women who "fail" the glucose challenge test, a series of four blood tests conducted over a single four-hour period, have a higher chance of developing adult onset diabetes during the later part of life. In his latest research, published in the journal Diabetic Medicine, Dr. Chodick observed that nearly half the women who fail all four of the four-part tests, demonstrating an elevated blood sugar level, developed Type II diabetes within ten years.

Dr. Chodick's study statistically proves what has been anecdotally believed by healthcare practitioners in the past. "While doctors take this into consideration, there commonly isn't close follow-up in the clinical setting," says Dr. Chodick. He says that women in the highest risk group (those who fail all four of the tests) should be given special counselling and intervention to prevent the onset of diabetes, which can greatly diminish quality of life and lead to adverse effects including heart disease, blindness and liver cancer......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

March 17, 2010, 8:28 PM CT

Diabetes patients who have a lower propensity to reach out

Mistrust can exact a high toll. Being overly cautious or dismissive in relating to people, scientists are learning, may shorten the lives of people with diabetes.

Diabetes patients who have a lower propensity to reach out to others have a higher mortality rate than those who feel comfortable seeking support. These are the findings of a five-year study reported by Dr. Paul Ciechanowski, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington (UW) and an affiliate investigator at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle.

Ciechanowski also directs the training insitute at the Center for Healthcare Improvement for Addictions, Mental Illness and Medically Vulnerable Populations (CHAMMP) at Harborview Medical Center, which is part of UW Medicine.

The report was published in this month's Diabetes Care, a professional journal of the American Diabetes Association.

This is the first known study, the research team believes, to examine the association between relationship styles and mortality.

The scientists examined 3,535 adult patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes enrolled as Group Health Cooperative patients in the Puget Sound area of Washington state. Because depression has been associated with premature death from diabetes, patients with depression were not included to avoid confounding the study results......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

March 14, 2010, 8:00 PM CT

Caution in reducing blood pressure in patients with diabetes, coronary disease

For patients with diabetes and heart disease, less isn't always more at least when it comes to blood pressure.

New data show an increased risk of heart attack, stroke or death for patients having blood pressure deemed too high or too low, as per Rhonda Cooper-DeHoff, Pharm.D., an associate professor of pharmacy and medicine at UF. She reported her findings today (Sunday, March 14) at the American College of Cardiology's 59th annual scientific session in Atlanta.

She recommends raising the systolic bar above 120 for blood pressure in patients with diabetes and coronary artery disease, saying that levels between 130 and 140 appear to be the most healthful.

Based on high blood pressure therapy guidelines, health-care practitioners have assumed that with regard to blood pressure, "the lower, the better," Cooper-DeHoff said. But, The International Verapamil SR-Trandolapril study, known as INVEST, suggests that the range considered normal for healthy Americans may actually be risky for those with a combined diagnosis of diabetes and coronary artery disease.

"Our data suggest that in patients with both diabetes and coronary artery disease, there is a blood pressure threshold below which cardiovascular risk increases," Cooper-DeHoff said.

As a number of as two out of three adults with diabetes have high blood pressure. Normal blood pressure as defined by the American Heart Association is less than 120 systolic and less than 80 diastolic. Blood pressure greater than 140 is still linked to a nearly 50 percent increase in cardiovascular risk in patients with diabetes. But efforts to reduce systolic blood pressure to below 130 did not appear to offer any additional benefit to diabetics with coronary artery disease compared with reduction of systolic blood pressure to between 130 and less than 140......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

March 12, 2010, 7:56 AM CT

Diabetes' link to eating disorders

Diabetics, under the gun to better manage their disease by controlling their food intake and weight, may find themselves in the sticky wicket of needing therapy that makes them hungry, scientists said.

Attempts to maintain healthy blood sugar levels and prevent weight gain may suggest an eating disorder when the disease and its therapy are to blame, said Dr. Deborah Young-Hyman, pediatric psychology expert at the Medical College of Georgia's Georgia Prevention Institute.

"You can't use the same criteria to diagnose eating disorders that you use in non-diabetic populations because what we actually prescribe as part of diabetes therapy is part of disordered eating behavior. Food preoccupation is one example," she said.

Preoccupation with food, in fact, is mandatory for optimal disease management. Questions like "What are you putting in your mouth? Did you know that was going to raise your blood sugar?" are a part of life, Dr. Young-Hyman said. Young women, and increasingly young men, also are not immune from societal pressures to be thin, she noted.

Side-by-side comparisons of young people with and without diabetes are needed to answer fundamentals such as the occurence rate of eating disorders among diabetics, who is at risk and whether therapy can be modified to reduce the risk, scientists report in a review article in the recent issue of Diabetes Care........ Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

February 11, 2010, 8:23 AM CT

Diabetes drug increases risk for bone fractures

A Henry Ford Hospital study finds women with type 2 diabetes who take a usually prescribed class of medications to treat insulin resistance appears to be at a higher risk for developing bone fractures.

After taking a thiazolidinedione (TZD) for one year, women are 50 percent more likely to have a bone fracture than patients not taking TZDs, as per study results. And those at the greatest risk for fractures from TZD use are women older than 65.

"Older women are already at a higher risk of osteoporosis and osteoporosis-related fractures, which might explain why they appeared to be the most affected by TZDs," says study senior author L. Keoki Williams, M.D., MPH, Center for Health Services Research and Department of Internal Medicine at Henry Ford Hospital.

The study one of the largest groups to examine the longitudinal relationship between TZD use and fractures appears in this month's issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

TZDs such as pioglitazone and rosiglitazone help keep blood glucose levels on target by decreasing insulin resistance and making body tissues more sensitive to insulin's effects. TZDs also cut down on the amount of glucose made by the liver in patients with type 2 diabetes.

But in recent years, TZDs have been associated with bone loss and increasing fracture risk. Complicating matters, type 2 diabetes and insulin use are also linked to an increased risk for fractures......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

February 3, 2010, 2:24 PM CT

Aim at cure: type 1 diabetes

A hormone responsible for the body's stress response is also associated with the growth of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, as per JDRF- funded scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. The findings are the latest advances to underscore the potential for regeneration as a key component of a possible cure for type 1 diabetes.

The research, which was reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was led by Wylie Vale, Ph.D., Professor and Head of the Clayton Laboratories for Peptide Biology and Mark O. Huising, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Clayton Foundation Laboratories. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation was a funder of the study.

As per Patricia Kilian, Ph.D., Program Director for Regeneration at JDRF, the study showed that the stress hormone could increase the rate at which insulin-producing cells in the pancreas expand in animal models. These findings reinforce the potential of regeneration as a cure for diabetes and provide insights for discovering new approaches to treat people with diabetes by restoring or regenerating their ability to produce insulin.



Regeneration Research

Among the fastest-growing scientific areas JDRF supports is research aimed at regenerating insulin producing cells in people who have diabetes (as opposed to transplanting cells from organ donors or other sources). This involves triggering the body to grow its own new insulin producing cells, either by copying existing ones some are commonly still active, even in people who have had diabetes for decades or causing the pancreas to create new ones......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

February 2, 2010, 9:18 AM CT

Diabetes patients rank health concerns

About one-third of doctors and their patients with diabetes do not see eye to eye on the most important health conditions to manage, as per a survey by the University of Michigan Medical School.

While both groups frequently ranked diabetes and high blood pressure among their top concerns, 38 percent of doctors were more likely to rank high blood pressure as the most important, while only 18 percent of diabetics said it was the most important. Patients were also more likely to prioritize symptoms such as pain and depression.

The findings are reported in the current issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine and may shed light on why some patients manage their diabetes so poorly.

"If a patient and their doctor do not agree on which of these issues should be prioritized, it will be difficult for them to come up with an effective therapy plan together," says main author Donna M. Zulman, M.D., a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Michigan Medical School and researcher at the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in Ann Arbor.

When a diabetic patient visits the doctor, the doctor is often concerned about the patient's risk of long-term complications from high blood sugar or uncontrolled sugar such as heart disease or kidney disease. The patient, however, might have more pressing issues, such as back pain or depression......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

January 28, 2010, 7:42 AM CT

Diabetes complications in depressed patients

Depression raises risks of advanced and severe complications from diabetes, as per a prospective study of Group Health primary-care patients in western Washington. These complications include kidney failure or blindness, the result of small vessel damage, as well as major vessel problems leading to heart attack or stroke.

The findings were published this week in Diabetes Care, a scientific journal of the American Diabetes Association. The study was conducted by researchers from the Group Health Research Institute, Seattle; the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine and School of Public Health, and the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System. The main author is Dr. Elizabeth Lin of the Group Health Research Institute.

Among their research volunteers with type 2 diabetes followed over 5 years, major depression was linked to a 36 percent higher risk of developing advanced micro-vascular complications, such as end-stage kidney disease or blindness, and a 25 percent higher risk of developing advanced macrovascular complications, such as stroke or myocardial infarction (heart attack from a blood clot), compared with diabetes patients without depression. The clinically significant risks remained even after the scientists adjusted for diabetes severity and self-care activities......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

January 18, 2010, 8:11 AM CT

From biological basics to diabetes discovery

In two major studies published in Nature Genetics today, scientists use biological understanding to dissect the genetics of diabetes. An international team comprising scientists from more than 100 institutions analysed vast suites of genetic data from more than 100,000 people of European descent to uncover the associations.

In the first study, the team identified ten novel genetic markers for biological traits underlying type 2 diabetes. In a companion paper the same consortium identified three new variants that are linked to raised levels of glucose seen in a common test for type 2 diabetes. The results help to unravel the complex biological story of type 2 diabetes: as well as revealing five new associations that influence directly the risk of diabetes, this research will drive studies to understand the biology of disease and to search for therapys to alleviate the burden caused by the disease.

The team are working to understand the normal metabolism of glucose as well as diseases of glucose metabolism, such as diabetes. They seek to uncover new genetic variants that are risk factors for the development of diabetes, as well as identifying genes that influence variation in the healthy range. Diabetes occurs when our bodies fail to produce sufficient insulin or when our cells fail to recognise and react to the insulin produced, resulting in abnormally high blood glucose or sugar levels......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

January 14, 2010, 5:27 PM CT

Sleep apnea and diabetes

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) adversely affects glucose control in patients with type 2 diabetes, as per a research studyconducted by scientists at the University of Chicago.

The study "demonstrates for the first time that there is a clear, graded, inverse relationship between OSA severity and glucose control in patients with type 2 diabetes," wrote main author, Renee S. Aronsohn, M.D., instructor of medicine at the University of Chicago.

The study also confirmed other reports that undiagnosed OSA is very common among patients with type 2 diabetes, indicating that it is largely unrecognized additional medical risk factor in these patients.

The findings have been published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

Dr. Aronsohn and his colleagues consecutively recruited patients with type 2 diabetes from outpatient clinics to participate in the study. The participants were interviewed to assess their diabetes history, medical history and medications, and level of physical activity. Height and weight measurements were also taken, and each participant's sleep/wake cycles were monitored for five days using wrist actigraphy and self-reported sleep logs. Finally, participants underwent an overnight polysomnography test for OSA , and glucose control was assessed by obtaining a blood sample for hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) measurement, the main clinical marker of glycemic control in diabetes......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

January 6, 2010, 4:27 PM CT

High blood pressure drugs in diabetic eye disease

Researchers in Massachusetts are reporting new evidence that certain hypertension drugs appears to be useful in preventing and treating diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of vision loss in people with diabetes. The study, the largest to date on proteins in the retina, could lead to new ways to prevent or treat the sight-threatening disease, they say. The findings are in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research, a monthly publication.

Edward Feener and his colleagues point out that diabetic retinopathy is a common complication of diabetes, which affects millions of people worldwide. It involves damage to blood vessels in the retina, the light sensitive tissue in the back of the eye. Prior studies suggested that drugs used to treat high blood pressure, including ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), may help prevent the condition.

The researchers analyzed proteins from the retinas laboratory mice with normal blood pressure and diabetes and compared them to those of non-diabetic mice. They identified 65 abnormal proteins in the diabetic mice out of more than 1,700 proteins in the study. Treatment with the ARB medication, candesartan, prevented the abnormal changes in more than 70 percent of the proteins......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

December 30, 2009, 8:05 AM CT

Pharmacists Improve Care of Diabetics While Cutting Costs

The role of pharmacists hasn't received much attention in the debate on the cost of health care. But national and regional studies show that when pharmacists directly participate in patient care, they significantly reduce therapy costs and improve outcomes.

A study on diabetic patients by the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences identified cost savings with improvements in a key indicator of glucose control in diabetes patients, the hemoglobin A1C measurement. The A1C provides a three-month average of the amount of excess glucose in the blood. Higher A1Cs indicate that a patient is at higher risk for developing long-term complications linked to diabetes, such as kidney disease or vision problems.

Published last spring in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, the UB study of 50 patients with Type 2 diabetes demonstrated that in just six months clinical pharmacists, in collaboration with primary care providers, were able to significantly reduce patients' A1C levels.

In the UB study, patients' A1C levels were reduced by an average of 1.1 percent, from an average of 8.5 percent to 7.4 percent, one year after being enrolled in the program, while also improving the overall metabolic profile.

"Our results show that enhancing the patient's access to care through collaborative physician-pharmacist relationships can yield lower blood glucose levels, improve the overall metabolic profile and reduce costs to the payer," says Erin Slazak, PharmD, UB clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice and board certified pharmacotherapy specialist......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

December 18, 2009, 6:58 PM CT

Rapid-acting insulin analogues

Due to a lack of suitable studies, it remains unclear whether children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes benefit more or less from long-term therapy with rapid-acting insulin analogues than with short-acting human insulin. Certainly, there is no proof of additional benefit from the available results from clinical trials of maximum one year duration. This applies both in the comparison with human insulin and in the comparison between analogues only. This is the conclusion of the final report of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) published on 16 November 2009.

The Institute believes that studies of longer duration are urgently needed because insulin performs a variety of functions especially during stages of human growth and development and it is not clear what effect insulin analogues have.

Important data on children and adolescents were not available for the first evaluation.

The current investigation is a follow-up project to a benefit evaluation of rapid-acting insulin analogues in type 1 diabetes, commissioned by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) and completed in March 2007. In that evaluation, IQWiG could only draw conclusions for adults concerning the advantages and disadvantages of the drug class, as data on children and adolescents were missing from completed but as yet unpublished studies. One of the sponsors of these trials, Novo Nordisk, had refused to provide relevant information. Only after public pressure did Novo Nordisk change its position and agree to supply the data requested......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source

December 17, 2009, 8:15 AM CT

Biomarkers For Diabetic Kidney Failure

Pooled DNA technique identifies variances that could indicate susceptibility to end-stage renal disease.

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- Dec. 16, 2009 -- Scientists using a DNA analysis tool developed by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and UCLA have identified genetic markers that could help treat chronic kidney disease among diabetics.

Study results, reported in the December edition of Diabetic Medicine, show it is possible to identify biomarkers linked to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) from the pooled DNA of more than 1,000 diabetics. Specifically, TGen scientists identified genes that could potentially contribute to ESRD among those with Type 1 Diabetes.

ESRD almost always follows chronic kidney failure and eventhough treatable with dialysis or transplantation, mortality rates remain high. While diabetic kidney disease is one of the most common complications of diabetes, it is currently not possible to determine who is at risk for ESRD.

"Identification of specific DNA variants may enhance our understanding of genetic risk factors for renal disease and may provide diagnostic value in determining which patients are at greatest risk of developing ESRD," said Dr. Johanna DiStefano, Director of TGen's Diabetes, Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases Division and the paper's senior author......... Posted by: Josly2006      Read more         Source