Diabetes in the News

Diabetes May Result From Botched Production Of Insulin Molecule
Picture a pretzel factory production line, with conveyer belts carrying the dough, formed into unbaked pretzels, down to the oven to be cooked.

Now imagine what would happen if pretzel dough started to overflow the mixer and oozed as a blob onto the conveyor, misshapen, and sticking fast to the dough of the other fully formed, unbaked pretzels. The result: a mess. And if that mess could no longer be conveyed into the oven, the backup of messy dough in the system would get worse and worse, and might eventually shut down the whole factory.

That’s essentially what might be happening in a much smaller kind of factory: the cells that make insulin in the body of people with diabetes.

Potential role of leptin in diabetes identified
Washington, Oct 2 (ANI): A new research has shown that leptin, a hormone largely responsible for regulating appetite control and energy metabolism, plays a key role in islet cell growth and insulin secretion.

The finding, unraveled by researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center, brings in new avenues for studying leptin and its role in islet cell biology, which may lead to new treatments for diabetes.

Preceding in vitro studies have found that leptin receptors, which are found in tissues throughout the body including the pancreas as well as the brain, mediate leptin-induced inhibition of insulin secretion in islet cells, also known as beta cells.

Gestational diabetes ups obesity risk in offspring
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children born to mothers who developed diabetes during pregnancy are more likely to be overweight or obese than their peers, according to a new study.

However, treatment of so-called (so-called? please its a condition you idiots) gestational diabetes reduces the risk.

Dr. Teresa A. Hillier and her colleagues studied nearly 10,000 mother-child pairs enrolled in Kaiser Permanente plans in Hawaii and in the Pacific Northwest during the period from 1995 to 2000. Women with preexisting diabetes were excluded. Follow-up with the children 5 to 7 years later revealed a significant association between their weight and their mothers’ blood glucose levels when tested during pregnancy, the researchers report in the medical journal Diabetes Care.

Specifically, a child was 28 percent more likely to be overweight or obese when the glucose level of the mother during pregnancy was in the top range rather than the lowest. According to Hillier’s team, the trend remained significant after factoring in maternal weight gain, maternal age, number of pregnancies, ethnicity, and birth weight.

However, further analysis showed that the risk of obesity was not significantly increased among children born to mothers with treated gestational diabetes.

Low doses of a red wine ingredient fight diabetes in mice
Even relatively low doses of resveratrol—a chemical found in the skins of red grapes and in red wine—can improve the sensitivity of mice to the hormone insulin, according to a report in the October issue of Cell Metabolism. As insulin resistance is often characterized as the most critical factor contributing to the development of type 2 diabetes, the findings “provide a potential new therapeutic approach for preventing or treating” both conditions, the researchers said.

The research group also confirmed that increased levels of an enzyme called SIRT1, which earlier studies had linked to longevity, DNA repair, and insulin secretion, improve insulin sensitivity in mice. Resveratrol is known to activate the SIRT1 enzyme.

The results suggest that “red wine might have some benefits for insulin sensitivity, but it needs to be confirmed by further investigation,” said Qiwei Zhai of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Given the potential complications of drinking alcohol, “an even better option may be to find other natural foods enriched with resveratrol or foods supplemented with resveratrol,” he added, noting that the chemical is also an active ingredient in other plants, including one called Polygonum cuspidatum used in traditional Chinese and Japanese medicine.

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