According to a report in the September 30th issue of the Cell Press journal, Cell, a pathway that initially drew attention for its role in embryonic stem cells and cancer also influences the odds that mice develop or resist diabetes.

Mice with high levels of the cancer-promoting proteins Lin28a or Lin28b become more sensitive to insulin and less prone to diabetes when on a high-fat diet, the new study shows.

“This highlights the overlap in the biology of these disorders,” said George Daley of Harvard Medical School. “It may be the same kinds of metabolic shifts that allow cancer cells to grow are also related to [whole-body] glucose metabolism.”

In fact, there were clues about such a connection, but “no obvious mechanism,” he says. For instance, studies have shown that cancer cells within a tumor are able to grow more rapidly by shifting the way they use glucose. Genome-wide association studies for type 2 diabetes have also pinpointed several susceptibility genes with known links to cancer or the cell cycle.

Daley’s team, including first authors Hau Zhu and Ng Shyh-Chang, had noticed earlier that an immature form of the microRNA (tiny bits of RNA that silence genes by targeting messenger RNA) known as let-7 is abundant in stem cells. “It allows stem cells to be stem cells,” Zhu says.

Article source: http://www.medindia.net/news/Shared-Biological-Basis-of-Diabetes-and-Cancer-91364-1.htm

The findings were published online this week in Diabetes, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

Usually, the liver stores excess blood sugar as glycogen, which it doles out overnight during sleep and other periods of fasting to keep glucose levels within a normal physiological range, explained H. Henry Dong, Ph.D., associate professor of pediatrics, Pitt School of Medicine. But in diabetes, the liver continues to pump out glucose even when insulin is provided as a treatment.

“Scientists have been trying to find the factors that contribute to this liver overproduction of glucose for decades,” Dr. Dong said. “If we can control that pathway, we should be able to help reduce the abnormally high blood sugar levels seen in patients with diabetes.”

He and his team have been studying a family of proteins called Forkhead box or FOX, and for the current project focused on one called FOX06. They found that mice engineered to make too much FOX06 developed signs of metabolic syndrome, the precursor to diabetes, including high blood sugar and high insulin levels during fasting as well as impaired glucose tolerance, while mice that made too little FOX06 had abnormally low blood sugars during fasting.

Article source: http://www.medindia.net/news/Key-Protein-Causing-Excess-Liver-Production-of-Glucose-in-Diabetes-Identified-by-Pitt-Team-91332-1.htm

Diabetes has become increasingly common in the United States and the world, according to background information in the article. Elevated levels of hemoglobin A1c (a measure of blood glucose levels and control over two to three months), blood pressure (BP), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) are associated with an increase in the risk of complications. Reducing the levels decreases those risks, but the article notes that most patients with diabetes do not have these levels under control. Currently, treatment guidelines do not include recommendations for how frequently physicians should see patients with diabetes, although recommended intervals for testing and adjustments to medication may range from every two to three days for insulin to every three months for hemoglobin A1c. “However,” the authors write, “benefits of more frequent provider encounters may not be limited to treatment intensification and testing.”

Fritha Morrison, M.P.H., from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study to determine whether more frequent encounters with a physician help patients improve control of diabetes. The authors analyzed data from 26,496 adult patients with diabetes and elevated hemoglobin A1c, BP and/or LDL-C levels who visited primary care physicians affiliated with two Boston hospitals for at least two years between January 2000 and January 2009. Treatment goals at the beginning of the study were hemoglobin A1c of less than 7 percent, BP of less than 130/85 mm Hg (millimeters of mercury) and LDL-C of less than 100 mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter). The researchers assessed the relationship between the frequency of clinician encounters (defined as notes in the medical record) and time to control of hemoglobin A1c, BP and LDL-C.

Article source: http://www.medindia.net/news/Frequent-Patient-Provider-Encounters-Lead-to-Faster-Diabetes-Control-91158-1.htm

The new study found that 11 percent children who are victims of diabetes also suffer from asthma.

Most children are victims of Type 1 diabetes, although Type 2 is also becoming common among children.

“Among youth with type 1 diabetes, asthma is associated with poor glycemic control, especially if asthma is untreated,” researchers said.  

Source-Medindia

Article source: http://www.medindia.net/news/Asthma-can-Make-Pediatric-Diabetes-Care-Difficult-91203-1.htm

The finding, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, raises the possibility that new designer drugs might be able to turn on key molecules in this pathway to help the 80 million Americans who have type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetic insulin resistance.

The molecular switches command pancreatic beta islet cells, the cells responsible for insulin, to grow and multiply. Tweaking these cells might offer a solution to type 1 diabetes, the form of diabetes caused by destruction of islet cells, and to type II diabetes, the form caused by insulin resistance.

“By understanding how pancreatic cells can be encouraged to produce insulin in the most efficient way possible, we may be able to manipulate those cells to treat or even prevent diabetes,” says the study’s lead author, Marc Montminy, a professor in the Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology at Salk.

Such new agents might increase the functioning of beta islet cells even in people who have not developed diabetes.

“The truth is that as we grow older, these islet cells tend to wear out,” Montminy says. “The genetic switches just don’t get turned on as efficiently as they did when we were younger, even if we don’t develop diabetes. It’s like using a garage door opener so many times, the battery wears out. We need a way to continually refresh that battery.”

Article source: http://www.medindia.net/news/New-Diabetes-Drugs-Possible-After-Discovery-of-Insulin-Switches-in-Pancreas-91175-1.htm

According to the ULCA (University of California, Los Angeles) researchers, a naturally produced amino acid-like molecule called GABA was given orally to obese and insulin resistant mice, who were in the early stages of Type 2 diabetes.

In the early pre-clinical study, researchers found that the GABA suppressed the inflammatory immune responses that are involved in the development of this condition.

GABA also helped in preventing the progression of the disease, improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, even after the onset of Type 2 diabetes in mice.

Source-ANI

Article source: http://www.medindia.net/news/Common-Dietary-Supplement-May-Lower-Type-2-Diabetes-Risk-91033-1.htm

The researchers conducted the study on 62 teenagers, all of whom were obese and at an average age of 14 years. The teenagers were monitored over a period of 36 hours and their blood sugar levels were taken using oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), anthropometric measurements, overnight polysomnography, and a frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test (FSIGT).

The researchers found that sleeping for 7.5 to 8.5 hours every night maintained stable glucose levels in the body and getting less or more sleep that the recommended time period increased the risk of getting diabetes.

“Our study found to keep glucose levels stable, the optimal amount of sleep for teenagers is 7.5 to 8.5 hours per night. In the meantime, our study reinforces the idea that getting adequate sleep in adolescence may help protect against type 2 diabetes”, lead researcher, Dr Dorit Koren said.

Source-Medindia

Article source: http://www.medindia.net/news/Diabetes-Risk-Linked-to-Insomnia-and-Oversleeping-90950-1.htm

The study was conducted by researchers from Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, who observed more than 1,000 individuals, all over 60 years of age. The participants were made to undergo glucose tolerance test after fasting overnight to check whether they had diabetes.

The researchers then followed up on the participants after 11 years and found that 232 people in total developed dementia during the period. Around 150 people were found to have diabetes, of who 41 developed dementia, compared to 559 people who did not have diabetes among whom 115 developed the disease.

“Our findings emphasize the need to consider diabetes as a potential risk factor for dementia. Diabetes is a common disorder, and the number of people with it has been growing in recent years all over the world. Controlling diabetes is now more important than ever”, lead researcher Yutaka Kiyohara said.

Source-Medindia

Article source: http://www.medindia.net/news/Dementia-Risk-High-in-People-With-Diabetes-90831-1.htm

Researchers from the Larry L. Hillblom Islet Research Center at UCLA examined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s database for adverse events reported between 2004 and 2009 among patients using the drugs sitagliptin and exenatide. They found a six-fold increase in the odds ratio for reported cases of pancreatitis with these drugs, compared with four other diabetes therapies they used as controls. They also found that patients who took the two drugs were more likely to have developed pancreatic cancer than those who were treated with the other therapies.

The study is published in the journal Gastroenterology.

“We undertook these studies because several studies in animal models by several investigators had suggested that this form of therapy may have unintended actions to promote growth of the ducts (tubes) in the pancreatic gland that convey digestive juices from the pancreas to the gut,” said Dr. Peter Butler, director of the Hillblom Center and a study co-author. “This is a concern if it happens in humans since it might be expected to increase the risk for pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. While the FDA data base has limitations, it does have advantages in being very large, openly accessible and independent from companies that market the drugs.

Article source: http://www.medindia.net/news/Two-New-Type-2-Diabetes-Drugs-Increase-Pancreatic-Cancer-Risk-90713-1.htm

Researchers found that milk-drinking teens, were also likely to be milk-drinking adults – a lifelong habit that was associated with a 43 percent lower risk for type 2 diabetes compared to non-milk drinkers. Diabetes affects more than 25.8 million people, or nearly 1 out of 10 Americans.

The Harvard University study studied teenage and adult food intake patterns (including milk and milk products) and health risk in more than 37,000 women. Researchers found the women who drank the most milk as adults and consumed the most milk products in their teen years (about 4 servings per day) had a lower risk of type 2 diabetes than those who consistently had a low dairy intake (about 1 serving per day during the teen years). The milk-drinking teens were also more likely to maintain their dairy habit through adulthood and gained less weight over time – nearly 4 pounds less than milk-skippers. Weight gain is another important risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

A second large Harvard study reinforced the lifelong benefits of milk – particularly as a protein source. Studying more than 440,000 adults, researchers found that swapping lowfat dairy for meat as a protein source, could reduce risk for type 2 diabetes by 17%. (2)

Article source: http://www.medindia.net/news/Milk-drinking-Teens-Grow-Into-Healthy-Adults-With-Lower-Diabetes-Risk-90603-1.htm