Diabetes news, discovery and discussion thread

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weatheriscool
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Diabetes news, discovery and discussion thread

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New discovery about diabetes may reduce the risk of organ failure
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10- ... ilure.html
by Aarhus University
A new research result from Aarhus University and the Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus has identified how diabetes affects stem cells residing in muscle to form fat and connective tissue. According to the researchers, the discovery has major clinical perspectives.

The cells that researchers from Aarhus University and the Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus have found are located in the skeletal muscle, but also in a many other organs. They are responsible for creating fat and scar tissue. Unhealthy skeletal muscle with an accumulation of connective tissue (fibrosis) and fat cells (called adipogenesis in medicine) damage the muscle's function.

In this study, the researchers have studied how type 2 diabetes alters the skeletal muscles. They discovered that both fibrosis and fatty tissue are formed in the muscles.

"One characteristic of e.g. diabetes is that the tissue becomes filled with fat and scar tissue," says Jean Farup.

Huge potential

He therefore believes that the clinical perspective can be huge, because the cells are found all over the body, and because many diseases are associated with exactly this build-up of fat and scar tissue in the skeletal muscle and other organs.

"With the help of studies of gene expression at single cell level, we've simply found the fibrosis-forming and fat-accumulating cells in the skeletal muscle," he explains.

The researchers also uncovered how gene expression occurs in an unhealthy cell compared to a healthy cell. Once they had identified the cells, they examined how the cells changed in a person with type 2 diabetes.
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Novel approach to treating type 2 diabetes shows prolonged normal blood sugar levels after a single one-time procedure
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10- ... sugar.html
by American Technion Society

A novel approach to treating type 2 diabetes is being developed at the Technion. The disease, caused by insulin resistance and reduction of cells' ability to absorb sugar, is characterised by increased blood sugar levels. Its long-term complications include heart disease, strokes, damage to the retina that can result in blindness, kidney failure, and poor blood flow in the limbs that may lead to amputations. It is currently treated by a combination of lifestyle changes, medication, and insulin injections, but ultimately is associated with a 10-year reduction in life expectancy.

Led by Professor Shulamit Levenberg, Ph.D. student Rita Beckerman from the Stem Cell and Tissue Engineering Laboratory in the Technion's Faculty of Biomedical Engineering presents a novel treatment approach, using an autograft of muscle cells engineered to take in sugar at increased rates. Mice treated in this manner displayed normal blood sugar levels for months after a single procedure. The group's findings were recently published in Science Advances.

Muscle cells are among the main targets of insulin, and they are supposed to absorb sugar from the blood. In their study, Prof. Levenberg's group isolated muscle cells from mice and engineered these cells to present more insulin-activated sugar transporters (GLUT4). These cells were then grown to form an engineered muscle tissue, and finally transported back into the abdomen of diabetic mice. The engineered cells not only proceeded to absorb sugar correctly, improving blood sugar levels, but also induced improved absorption in the mice's other muscle cells, by means of signals sent between them. After this one treatment, the mice remained cured of diabetes for four months—the entire period they remained under observation. Their blood sugar levels remained lower, and they had reduced levels of fatty liver normally displayed in type 2 diabetes.
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weatheriscool
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Widespread fast-food restaurants linked to higher rates of type 2 diabetes
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10- ... igher.html
by NYU Langone Health
An increasing number of studies suggest a link between a neighborhood's built environment and the likelihood that its residents will develop chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes (T2D) and certain types of cancers. A new nationwide study led by researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine published online today in JAMA Network Open suggests that living in neighborhoods with higher availability of fast-food outlets across all regions of the United States is associated with higher subsequent risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Findings also indicated that the availability of more supermarkets could be protective against developing T2D, particularly in suburban and rural neighborhoods.
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Retinal immune cells may hold key to preventing diabetes-related vision loss
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-12- ... lated.html
by University of Melbourne
New research could form the basis for developing life-changing therapies that limit the impact of diabetic eye disease—a condition that could potentially affect some 1.7 million Australians, suffering from type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Published in PNAS, University of Melbourne research uncovers how retinal immune cells change during diabetes, which may lead to new treatments that can be used from an early stage of disease, well before any loss of vision.

"Until recently, immune cells of the nervous system were thought to sit quietly, only responding when injury or disease occurred. Our finding expands our knowledge of what these cells do and shows a highly unusual mechanism by which blood vessels are regulated. This is the first time, immune cells have been implicated in controlling blood vessel and blood flow," co-author Professor Erica Fletcher said.
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Well, this (see article below) seems like a no-brainer:

People With High-risk Prediabetes Benefit from Intensive Lifestyle Intervention
December 20, 2021

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/938550

Inttroduction:
(EurekAlert) Intensive lifestyle intervention with plenty of exercise helps people with prediabetes improve their blood glucose levels over a period of years and thus delay or even prevent type 2 diabetes. In particular, individuals with prediabetes at highest risk benefited from intensive lifestyle intervention. This is shown by the evaluation of the Prediabetes Lifestyle Intervention Study (PLIS) of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), which was conducted at 8 sites of the center throughout Germany. The results have now been published in the journal Diabetes.

More exercise and healthy eating behavior help many people with prediabetes to normalize their blood glucose levels and avoid developing type 2 diabetes. However, not everyone benefits from a conventional lifestyle intervention (LI). Recent studies show that already in prediabetes, there are different subtypes with different risk profiles. Researchers at the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD) have therefore investigated in a multicenter randomized controlled trial whether people with prediabetes and a high risk benefit from an intensification of the intervention and how people with a low risk are affected by a conventional LI compared to no lifestyle changes.

The LI lasted 12 months in each case and the follow-up period was a further two years. A total of 1,105 individuals with prediabetes were investigated at various study sites in Germany and assigned to a high-risk or low-risk phenotype based on insulin secretion, insulin sensitivity, and liver fat content. 82% of participants completed the study.
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caltrek
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Diabetes Drug from the Group of SGLT2 Inhibitors Normalizes Insulin Action in the Brain
December 20, 2021

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/938548

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Overweight or obesity, an unfavorable distribution of fat in the body and the development of type 2 diabetes are often associated with a reduced effect of the hormone insulin in many organs, including the brain (insulin resistance). So far there is no treatment to restore insulin sensitivity in the brain, which plays a key role in metabolic control. Researchers of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), the departments of Internal Medicine IV (Director: Prof. Andreas Birkenfeld) and Clinical Chemistry and Pathobiochemistry (Director: Prof. Andreas Peter) of Tübingen University Hospital and the Institute of Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases (IDM) at Helmholtz Munich have now shown for the first time that the SGLT2 inhibitor empagliflozin can be used to treat insulin resistance in the brain – with positive effects on the metabolism of the entire body. This study has now been published in Diabetes Care.

The brain has a decisive influence on our eating behavior and thus also on body weight and metabolism. If the brain reacts sensitively to insulin, we eat less, less abdominal fat is stored, and the insulin sensitivity of the entire body improves. However, in people with obesity or type 2 diabetes, the hormone in the brain is no longer effective. This insulin resistance leads to a disturbed metabolism. So far, insulin resistance in the brain cannot be treated with drugs. The researchers investigated whether a diabetes drug from the SGLT2 inhibitor group can also reverse insulin resistance in the brain. SGLT2 inhibitors reduce elevated blood glucose levels in diabetes by promoting glucose excretion through the urine and have a beneficial effect on the heart, circulation and kidneys. For this purpose, the effect of the SGLT2 inhibitor empagliflozin on the insulin sensitivity of the brain was investigated in study participants with a preliminary stage of diabetes (prediabetes).
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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Researchers find a new route for regulating blood sugar levels independent of insulin
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01- ... sulin.html
by Salk Institute
The discovery of insulin 100 years ago opened a door that would lead to life and hope for millions of people with diabetes. Ever since then, insulin, produced in the pancreas, has been considered the primary means of treating conditions characterized by high blood sugar (glucose), such as diabetes. Now, Salk scientists have discovered a second molecule, produced in fat tissue, that, like insulin, also potently and rapidly regulates blood glucose. Their finding could lead to the development of new therapies for treating diabetes, and also lays the foundation for promising new avenues in metabolism research.

The study, which was published in Cell Metabolism on January 4, 2022, shows that a hormone called FGF1 regulates blood glucose by inhibiting fat breakdown (lipolysis). Like insulin, FGF1 controls blood glucose by inhibiting lipolysis, but the two hormones do so in different ways. Importantly, this difference could enable FGF1 to be used to safely and successfully lower blood glucose in people who suffer from insulin resistance.

"Finding a second hormone that suppresses lipolysis and lowers glucose is a scientific breakthrough," says co-senior author and Professor Ronald Evans, holder of the March of Dimes Chair in Molecular and Developmental Biology. "We have identified a new player in regulating fat lipolysis that will help us understand how energy stores are managed in the body."
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Nanotherapy offers new hope for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-nanothera ... betes.html
by Northwestern University
Individuals living with Type 1 diabetes must carefully follow prescribed insulin regimens every day, receiving injections of the hormone via syringe, insulin pump or some other device. And without viable long-term treatments, this course of treatment is a lifelong sentence.

Pancreatic islets control insulin production when blood sugar levels change, and in Type 1 diabetes, the body's immune system attacks and destroys such insulin-producing cells. Islet transplantation has emerged over the past few decades as a potential cure for Type 1 diabetes. With healthy transplanted islets, Type 1 diabetes patients may no longer need insulin injections, but transplantation efforts have faced setbacks as the immune system continues to eventually reject new islets. Current immunosuppressive drugs offer inadequate protection for transplanted cells and tissues and are plagued by undesirable side effects.

Now a team of researchers at Northwestern University has discovered a technique to help make immunomodulation more effective. The method uses nanocarriers to re-engineer the commonly used immunosuppressant rapamycin. Using these rapamycin-loaded nanocarriers, the researchers generated a new form of immunosuppression capable of targeting specific cells related to the transplant without suppressing wider immune responses.

The paper was published today, in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. The Northwestern team is led by Evan Scott, the Kay Davis Professor and an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Guillermo Ameer, the Daniel Hale Williams Professor of Biomedical Engineering at McCormick and Surgery at Feinberg. Ameer also serves as the director of the Center for Advanced Regenerative Engineering (CARE).
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Artificial pancreas proves 'life-changing' for very young children with type 1 diabetes and their families
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01- ... ldren.html
by University of Cambridge
An artificial pancreas developed by a team of Cambridge researchers is helping protect very young children with type 1 diabetes at a particularly vulnerable time of their lives. A study published today found that it is both safe to use and more effective at managing their blood sugar levels than current technology.

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers compared the performance of the artificial pancreas, which uses an algorithm to determine the amount of insulin administered by a device worn by the child, against 'sensor-augmented pump therapy'.

Management of type 1 diabetes is challenging in very young children, because of a number of factors including the high variability in levels of insulin required and in how individual children respond to treatment, and their unpredictable eating and activity patterns. Children are particularly at risk of dangerously low blood sugar levels (hypoglycaemia) and high blood sugar levels (hyperglycaemia). Previous studies have linked prolonged hyperglycaemia in children with type 1 diabetes with lower IQ scores and slower brain growth.

To manage children's glucose levels, doctors increasingly turn to devices that continuously monitor glucose levels and deliver insulin via a pump, which administers insulin through a cannula inserted into the skin. These devices have proved successful to an extent in older children, but not in very young children.
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