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“Plant-Derived Chemical With Antidiabetic Effects Discovered Using Fat Cell Screen
After screening hundreds of compounds for their effects on fat development, researchers have discovered that an ingredient found in some plants fights diabetes in mice without some of the side effects attributed to other antidiabetes drugs. The chemical they pinpointed, known as harmine, was first isolated more than 150 years ago from plants traditionally included in ritual and medicinal preparations around the world, the team reports in the May issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press.

While harmine itself has effects on the central nervous system that may preclude its use, “it may eventually be possible to separate the nervous system and metabolic effects of harmine through optimization of the chemical structure,” said Peter Tontonoz, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles. Harmine has been known to induce hallucinations, convulsions, and tremors. Source

“Worksite Health Programs Boost the Bottom Line: Study
Workplace health programs can help employees better control their blood pressure and diabetes, and that can benefit employers, too, a new U.S. study finds.

In this study, researchers followed 2,100 workers at JEA, a municipal utility in Jacksonville. Fla., for three years. The workers took part in JEA’s comprehensive wellness system that includes health screenings, coaching, live and written health education information, and an incentive program to encourage participation.

Over the three years (2004-2006), employees who took part in the program improved their blood pressure control by 9 percent and their diabetes control by 15 percent. Source

“Dramatic Rise in U.S. Kids Hospitalized for Type 2 Diabetes
In another sign of the alarming childhood obesity epidemic in the United States, researchers report a 200 percent increase in the number of children hospitalized for type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes, which used to be called adult onset diabetes because it was rarely seen in children, is typically diagnosed in patients who are overweight. Left untreated, it can lead to such complications as heart disease, blindness, nerve damage and kidney damage.

The dramatic increase in pediatric type 2 diabetes occurred nationwide between 1997 and 2003, according to the study by researchers at New York University School of Medicine.

“The rapid rise in childhood obesity is now common knowledge,” said Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University School of Medicine’s Prevention Research Center, who was not involved in the study. “Increasingly, so is the concurrent rise in type 2 diabetes in children — a generation ago, this condition did not exist. What is now called type 2 diabetes was called adult onset diabetes until quite recently.” Source

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Resources:
dLife; About Diabetes.com; American Diabetes Association

Diabetes; Type 1 Diabetes; Type 2 Diabetes