Could A Diabetes Cure Be Right Around the Corner?

[Adam's Apple]

Cure for Diabetes on Horizon
NewsMax Health
January 6, 2007

Diabetics may soon see a cure for their debilitating, life-threatening disease.

Researchers from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto found that mice given injections of capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot chili peppers, cured mice of Type 1 diabetes almost immediately.

The results astonished even the scientists who labeled their discovery as “the biggest shock of our lives.” Their findings indicate that diabetes is not a disease of the immune system, as has long been thought, but is a disease of the nervous system caused by faulty pain nerves in the pancreas.

Immunologist Dr. Hans Michael Dosch and pain expert Dr. Michael Salter had noticed that the islet cells in diabetics were surrounded by massive numbers of pain nerves; they further noted that these nerves sent signals to the brain that the pancreatic tissue was injured, and believed that malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas could be the culprit. As a test, they injected mice that had Type 1 diabetes with capsaicin in order to kill the pain nerves in the pancreas. Almost immediately, the islet cells in the mice began producing insulin.

“We had the shock of our lives,” said Dr. Dosch. I’ve never seen anything like it. In my career, this is unique.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dr. Michael Salter, one of the scientists involved in the studies and a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children. “Mice with diabetes suddenly didn’t have diabetes anymore.”

Dosch and Salter later found that a single injection “cured” some mice for up to four months. They also found the treatment helped limit the insulin resistance that is characteristic of Type 2 diabetes. The two doctors hope to complete human trials within the next year.

 

[waltky]

Type 2 diabetes gene mutation link...

Gene Mutation Linked to Type 2 Diabetes
March 09, 2011 - Discovery could lead to prevention, early treatment for those most at risk

Scientists have identified a unique genetic mutation in about 10 percent of people with type 2 diabetes studied in the United States and Europe. The discovery could help some people learn if they are at risk of developing diabetes so they can seek early treatment and possibly avoid getting the disease altogether.

More than 200 million people worldwide suffer from type 2 diabetes, a potentially fatal disorder. The World Health Organization expects diabetes-related deaths to double by 2030. Diabetes strikes people in rich and poor countries alike. World Health Organization statistics show that more than 80% of diabetes deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Age and obesity are two risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Another is family history.

"Diabetes is a very important disease that is increasing in every country in the world," says Dr. Ira Goldfine, who has been studying the DNA of people with and without diabetes. "And we need to know what causes it. And we have to get better treatments for it."

With type 2 diabetes, the body cannot turn blood sugar into energy. When sugar builds up in the blood, it can lead to serious complications including death. That's why people afflicted with the disease need to monitor their blood sugar.

MORE

 

[waltky]

possum thinks mebbe it changes the DNA...

US study probes how surgery makes diabetes disappear
4/27/2011 - Operation may change metabolism in a way that dieting alone does not

Weight loss surgery appears to change the body's metabolism in a way that dieting alone cannot, helping to explain why diabetes often disappears after the surgery even before much weight is lost, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. Understanding how gastric bypass affects metabolism could shed light on treatments for type 2 diabetes, a global epidemic strongly linked with obesity and too little exercise.

Weight loss surgery is becoming increasingly popular as obese people struggle to lose weight and avoid the health complications that accompany the extra pounds -- including diabetes, heart disease, joint pain and some cancers. In research conducted at Columbia University in New York and Duke University in North Carolina, researchers studied two small groups of severely obese diabetic patients who either had gastric bypass surgery or went on strict diets. Both groups lost about 20 pounds.

For the study, the teams measured metabolites — chemical byproducts of foods in the body. They found that unlike dieting, gastric bypass changes a person's metabolism by significantly reducing levels of circulating amino acids — compounds linked with obesity, diabetes and insulin resistance. "What we were trying to do is cast a very wide net," said Christopher Newgard of Duke, who worked on the study published in Science Translational Medicine.

'Very clear difference'

 

[waltky]

Granny keeps tellin' Uncle Ferd if he don't get up off a couch he gonna get diabetes...

Prolonged TV watching 'raises diabetes risk'
14 June 2011 - Couch potatoes beware, say researchers who link prolonged TV watching with an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Every additional two hours spent in front of the box each day raises the diabetes risk by a fifth and heart disease risk by 15%, a study found. Switching it off and doing something more strenuous instead could stop two people in every thousand developing these conditions, the authors say. The work appears in the journal JAMA.

"The message is simple. Cutting back on TV watching can significantly reduce risk of type-2 diabetes, heart disease and premature mortality," said lead researcher Professor Frank Hu, of the Harvard School of Public Health. The researchers say it is not TV viewing per se that is the problem, but that people who spend hours watching programmes are less likely to lead an active lifestyle as a result and, in turn, are more likely to be overweight or obese.

Premature death

They say other sedentary activities, like sitting in front of a computer playing games or surfing the internet, might have a similar effect, and this should be studied. The investigators examined the findings of eight large studies that included over 175,000 people and looked at the health risks associated with TV viewing. The results showed that more than two hours of TV viewing per day increased risk of type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and more than three hours of daily viewing increased risk of premature death.

The researchers estimate that for every additional two hours of TV watched a day there is an increased risk of an extra 38 people in every 100,000 in the US dying from heart and circulatory disease and 176 people in every 100,000 developing diabetes. Dr Iain Frame, of Diabetes UK, said the findings should be a wake-up call about the risk of leading a sedentary lifestyle. He said evidence suggests physical activity can reduce the risk of type-2 diabetes by over 60%.

More BBC News - Prolonged TV watching 'raises diabetes risk'

 

[waltky]

Reversible diabetes?...

Type 2 diabetes in newly diagnosed 'can be reversed'
23 June 2011 - Researchers found that blood sugar levels of all participants had returned to normal in one week.

An extreme eight-week diet of 600 calories a day can reverse Type 2 diabetes in people newly diagnosed with the disease, says a Diabetologia study. Newcastle University researchers found the low-calorie diet reduced fat levels in the pancreas and liver, which helped insulin production return to normal. Seven out of 11 people studied were free of diabetes three months later, say findings published in the journal. More research is needed to see whether the reversal is permanent, say experts.

Type 2 diabetes affects 2.5m people in the UK. It develops when not enough insulin is produced in the body or the insulin that is made by the body doesn't work properly. When this happens, glucose - a type of sugar - builds up in the blood instead of being broken down into energy or fuel which the body needs. The 11 participants in the study were all diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes within the previous four years. They cut their food intake drastically for two months, eating only liquid diet drinks and non-starchy vegetables.

Fat loss

After one week of the diet, researchers found that the pre-breakfast blood sugar levels of all participants had returned to normal. MRI scans of their pancreases also revealed that the fat levels in the organ had decreased from around 8% - an elevated level - to a more normal 6%. Three months after the end of the diet, when participants had returned to eating normally and received advice on healthy eating and portion size, most no longer suffered from the condition.

Professor Roy Taylor, director of Newcastle Magnetic Resonance Centre at Newcastle University and lead study author, said he was not suggesting that people should follow the diet. "This diet was only used to test the hypothesis that if people lose substantial weight they will lose their diabetes. "Although this study involved people diagnosed with diabetes within the last four years, there is potential for people with longer-standing diabetes to turn things around too."

Susceptibility question

 

[Sarah G]

Cure for Diabetes on Horizon
NewsMax Health
January 6, 2007

Diabetics may soon see a cure for their debilitating, life-threatening disease.

Researchers from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto found that mice given injections of capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot chili peppers, cured mice of Type 1 diabetes almost immediately.

The results astonished even the scientists who labeled their discovery as “the biggest shock of our lives.” Their findings indicate that diabetes is not a disease of the immune system, as has long been thought, but is a disease of the nervous system caused by faulty pain nerves in the pancreas.

Immunologist Dr. Hans Michael Dosch and pain expert Dr. Michael Salter had noticed that the islet cells in diabetics were surrounded by massive numbers of pain nerves; they further noted that these nerves sent signals to the brain that the pancreatic tissue was injured, and believed that malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas could be the culprit. As a test, they injected mice that had Type 1 diabetes with capsaicin in order to kill the pain nerves in the pancreas. Almost immediately, the islet cells in the mice began producing insulin.

“We had the shock of our lives,” said Dr. Dosch. I’ve never seen anything like it. In my career, this is unique.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dr. Michael Salter, one of the scientists involved in the studies and a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children. “Mice with diabetes suddenly didn’t have diabetes anymore.”

Dosch and Salter later found that a single injection “cured” some mice for up to four months. They also found the treatment helped limit the insulin resistance that is characteristic of Type 2 diabetes. The two doctors hope to complete human trials within the next year.

I've heard it's good for arthritis as well. Hope they find a cure soon

 

[waltky]

Scientists get closer to artificial pancreas...

Analysis: Scientists getting closer to artificial pancreas
6/24/2011 — Researchers are coming closer to developing an "artificial pancreas," a long-sought system of insulin pumps and glucose sensors that deliver insulin to diabetics, mimicking the function of a real pancreas.

The devices have been in development for more than three decades, but lawmakers and diabetes advocates are ramping up the pressure and U.S. regulators this week outlined a regulatory path for a preliminary version of the device. And while a seamless device that tracks a diabetic's blood sugar and automatically administers the right dose of insulin is still years away from commercial use, results of several studies being presented this week at the American Diabetes Association meeting in San Diego show real promise.

In one, researchers from Boston University and Massachusetts General Hospital tested a system using Abbott Laboratories' FreeStyle Navigator continuous glucose monitor and two insulin pumps made by Insulet Corp, all controlled by a laptop. The system, which is designed to better mimic the body's natural mechanism of controlling both high and low blood sugar, was portable enough to allow adults with type 1 diabetes to roam around a hospital and use an exercise bike.

At the end of the 51-hour study, which involved daily exercise, two nights and six meals -- all of which affect a diabetic's blood sugar levels -- six patients had an average blood glucose in the normal range -- in the high 140s, which is about the equivalent of an A1c reading of about 7. "It is very good. This is what we would call near normal blood glucose," said Dr. Steven Russell of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who is developing the system with Edward Damiano, a biomedical engineer at Boston University.

In another study, a team at Mayo Clinic hooked patients up with devices called accelerometers that tracked movements and found that even moderate exercise plays a role in glucose. The team, led by Yogish Kudva, will incorporate this data into a sophisticated software program that acts as the "brain" of an artificial pancreas system, analyzing blood sugar and calculating when diabetics need a dose of insulin. The team plans to start a clinical trial with the system this year or early next year, Kudva says.

CLOSING THE LOOP

 

[Dabs]

I hope they do have a cure soon!
I know diabetes is a very crappy ass thing to deal with, and those who have it, will be happy to hear some good news.
Now, if we can find a cure for cancer too....and other terrible diseases.
But, this is a good start!

 

[tigerbob]

Scientists have been "curing" diabetes for years in labs. For a number of reasons, translation from lab to real world seems to make little progress.

The stories about the "cures" always make the news. The follow up articles where the "cure" was found to be unreliable or even potentially dangerous never do.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Be cool if there were, but medicine today has more incentive to find a 'treatment'.

EDIT: Not Medicine. The medical bureaucracy. It's the billing department that's driving medicine today.

 

[waltky]

Diabetes rate 'doubles'...

Diabetes rate 'doubles' - Imperial College and Harvard research suggests
25 June 2011 : Obesity is a major risk factor for Type 2 diabetes

The number of adults with diabetes in the world has more than doubled since 1980, according to a new study. Researchers from Imperial College London and Harvard University analysed data from 2.7m people across every continent, using statistical techniques to project a worldwide figure. They claim the total number of people with diabetes - which can be fatal - has risen from 153m to 347m. The authors called for better detection and treatment to combat the rise. The study was published in The Lancet medical journal.

Its authors said 70% of the rise was down to people living longer. The rise has been most pronounced in the Pacific Islands. In the Marshall Islands a third of all women have the condition. Majid Ezzati, of Imperial College London, said: "Diabetes is becoming more common almost everywhere in the world. "Unless we develop better programs for detecting people with elevated blood sugar and helping them to control their weight, diabetes will continue to impose a major burden on health systems around the world."

Diabetes leads to inadequate blood sugar control, which can damage the kidneys and cause blindness. It can also cause heart disease and strokes. The condition is closely linked with obesity. Patients have to inject themselves with insulin. Of developed nations, the US had the highest prevalence. The diabetes rate was relatively low in western Europe.

Drug market booming

 

[waltky]

Breakthrough in blood vessel research...

Diabetics get blood vessels made from donor cells
Mon Jun 27,`11 - Three dialysis patients have received the world's first blood vessels grown in a lab from donated skin cells. It's a key step toward creating a supply of ready-to-use arteries and veins that could be used to treat diabetics, soldiers with damaged limbs, people having heart bypass surgery and others.

The goal is to one day have a refrigerated inventory of these in various sizes and shapes that surgeons could order up as needed like bandages and other medical supplies. The work so far is still early-stage. Three patients in Poland have received the new vessels, which are working well two to eight months later. But doctors are excited because this builds on earlier success in about a dozen patients given blood vessels grown in the lab from their own skin — a process too long and expensive to be practical. "This version, built from a master donor, is available off the shelf and at a dramatically reduced cost," estimated at $6,000 to $10,000, said Todd McAllister, chief of Cytograft Tissue Engineering Inc., the San Francisco-area company leading the work.

The American Heart Association considers it so promising that the group featured it on Monday in the first of a new series of webcasts about cutting-edge science. "This is tremendously exciting," because the failure of blood vessels used in dialysis is "a huge public health problem," said Duke University's Dr. Robert Harrington, a heart expert who had no role in the work. If a larger study getting under way now in Europe and South America shows success, "this is big news," Harrington said. Kidney failure, which is common in diabetics, requires dialysis to filter wastes from the blood through a connection between an artery and a vein called a shunt. It gets punctured several times a week to hook patients up to the dialysis machine, and complications include blood clots, clogging and infection.

What's more, patients often run out of suitable sites for these shunts as problems develop. Plastic versions have high rates of failure and complications, too. Doctors have long wished for a natural substitute. The lab-grown vessels are free of artificial materials. They don't involve stem cells, so they're not controversial. Researchers start with a snip of skin from the back of a hand, remove cells and grow them into sheets of tissue that are rolled up like straws to form blood vessels. So far, these lab-grown vessels have been tolerated by the recipients' immune systems; no anti-rejection medicine or tissue matching is needed. That's not surprising because lab-grown skin is already used to treat many burn victims. "There are literally hundreds of thousands of patients that could use this technology," McAllister said.

Each year, nearly 400,000 Americans undergo dialysis and half of them use plastic shunts. More than 160,000 people lose limbs because of poor circulation that might be improved with lab-grown vessels. About 300,000 people have heart bypass operations using blood vessels taken from other parts of the body to create detours around clogged heart arteries. Some heart patients say the leg wound from removing the long vein to create heart bypasses hurts more than the chest wound for the open-heart surgery. In 2005, Cytograft reported success with its first attempt at dialysis shunts using patients' own skin. Some of the early work was sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

The new work, using donor cells, makes this advance more practical for wide use, said Dr. Timothy Gardner, a heart surgeon at Christiana Care Health Services in Newark, Del., and former American Heart Association president. "It provides the option or the opportunity for off-the-shelf graft availability as opposed to something that has to be built from the individual's own cells," he said. Cytograft plans a study in Europe and South America comparing 40 patients getting the lab-grown vessels to 20 getting plastic shunts. Studies also are planned on a mesh version for people with poor leg circulation.

Source

 

[Loveyourbody008]

Diseases like type 2 diabetes mellitus, as well as a variety of heart problems, have been associated with watching television, according to Reuters.

New research from the Harvard School of public health suggests that the more TV a person watches, the more he is likely to develop sicknesses associated with poor diet and a lack of exercise.
“The message is simple,” said head researcher Frank Hu. “Cutting back on TV watching is an important way to reduce sedentary behaviours and decrease risk of diabetes and heart disease.”
According to the study, US residents watch approximately 5 hours of TV per day, while Europeans and Australians take in 3.5 to 4 hours per day.
“The combination of a sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet and obesity creates a 'perfect breeding ground' for type 2 diabetes and heart disease,” said Hu.
The study analyzed research from eight other studies that followed more than 200,000 people for an average of 7 to 10 years. Hu and his colleagues found that for every two hours of TV a person watched, her risk of diabetes increased by 20 percent and her risk of heart disease rose by 15 percent.
The study cannot prove that TV causes such health problems directly, since people who watch less TV might be naturally inclined to live healthier lifestyles.
“It's true that people who watch a lot of TV differ from those who watch less, especially in terms of diet and physical activity levels.

 

[waltky]

Hope for women with Type 1 diabetes...

Reproductive Cells May Some Day Treat Women with Diabetes
August 31, 2011 - Women who have Type 1 diabetes, a condition in which the body does not produce the hormone insulin, might someday be successfully treated with a transplant of insulin-producing cells grown from cells in their uterus.

Researchers at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, took the stem cells from the human endometrium, or lining of the uterus, and converted them into insulin-producing islet or beta cells. Stem cells are master cells that, given the right nutrients and growth factors, can be coaxed to grow into any type of cell in the body. Normally, endometrial stem cells generate the lining inside the womb that is shed each month during menstruation. After converting the endometrial cells into islet cells, scientists injected them into the membrane surrounding the kidneys of diabetic mice whose pancreases produced no insulin, a hormone used by mammals to convert glucose from food into energy.

Louis DePaolo is head of the Reproductive Sciences Branch at the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which funded the research. DePaolo says the animals that received the islet cell transplant were more alert and healthier-looking than the untreated mice, which developed cataracts and dull fur. But DePaolo says the transplant did not cure the treated mice of their diabetes. They still suffered from high blood sugar, an indication that not enough insulin was being produced to control the disease. "You are talking about at least 20- or 30-fold less secretion of insulin by these cells than cells that you are actually taking from the pancreas; not ones that have actually been converted to pancreatic cells," DePaolo noted.

For that reason, DePaolo says it's likely to be many years before stem therapy is used to treat diabetes in humans. For one thing, he says scientists need to figure out how to get the newly-created beta cells to produce more insulin. The findings in the latest study would be of most benefit to individuals suffering from Type 1 diabetes, in which the pancreas does not produce enough insulin, causing abnormally high or low levels of sugar in the blood. The treatment would be less helpful for the more common Type 2 diabetes, in which the pancreas produces insulin, but the body has difficulty using it.

"So that [way] you wouldn't have the immune response," DePaolo noted. "And that's one of the highlights of this study, is that the cells that are obtained are readily available from the uterus from women who undergo hysterectomy, for one reason or another they can obtain these stem cells." Using the same laboratory techniques, Yale researchers also converted endometrial stem cells into healthy brain cells that, theoretically, could be used to replace the cells that go awry in Parkinson's disease. The procedure has not been tested yet in animals. The study on converting endometrial cells into insulin-producing islet cells is published in the journal Molecular Therapy.

Source