Category: Diabetes 101

Diabetes affects more than 24 million people in the United States. New technology and medical advances surface everyday that get us one step closer to find the cure.

New technology that delivers a sustained release of therapeutics for up to six months could also be used to help with routine injections for health conditions like HIV/AIDS, various forms of cancer and diabetes.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have created reformable, injectable and spreadable hydrogels that can be loaded with proteins and various other therapeutics. These hydrogels contain 99.7 percent of water by weight with the remaining percent being made up of cellulose polymers that are held together by cucurbiturils, which are barrel-shaped molecules that can act as a miniature pair of handcuffs.

Leader of the research and the Department of Chemistry, Dr Oren Scherman said, “The hydrogels protect the proteins so that they remain bio-active for long periods, and allow the proteins to remain in their native state. Importantly, all the components can be incorporated at room temperature, which is key when dealing with proteins which denature when exposed to high heat.”

Scherman, DrXian Jun Loh and PhD student Eric Appel, who developed that hydrogels, says that “they are capable of delivering a sustained release of the proteins that they contain for up to six months, compared with the current maximum of three months”. The rate of release can be controlled due to the ratio of materials that are in the hydrogel.

Hydrogels double the window of content release and use less non-water material than the current technology does. An extra material serves as scaffolding of sorts that holds the hydrogel together. However, the performance can be affected, so the lesser structure formation material that is contained in the hydrogel can help it to perform more effectively.

Drug therapy is moving further away from small molecule drugs and more toward protein-based therapy. Applications of insulin treatment, wound healing and hormone therapy are all ideal candidates for hydrogels.

More than a quarter of the 2.9 million individuals within the UK who have been diagnosed with diabetes have to inject themselves daily with insulin so that they can control their blood sugar levels. By using the insulin that is injected with the hydrogel the number of daily injections could be reduced to just two a year.

Appel said, “There’s been a lot of research that shows patients who need to take a pill each day for the rest of their lives, especially HIV patients in Africa who do not show any obvious symptoms, will take the pills for a maximum of six months before they stop, negating the point of taking the medication in the first place. If patients only have to take one shot which will give them six month’s worth of medication, we’ll have a much greater chance of affecting an entire population and slowing or stopping the progression of a disease.”

The research team is working with other researchers at the Brain Repair Center in the Department of Clinical Medicine. They are hoping to find out how the technology can be used to treat brain cancer.

New findings suggest that a group of hormone-producing cells in the brain can actually control blood sugar levels. This new finding could result in both a diabetes treatment and a weight loss drug.

Typically, in fruit flies both starvation and reduced diet will lead to hyperactivity. When a fly is hungry, they buzz around with intense aggravation, trying to find more food. This happens due to enzyme, which is called AMP-activated kinase. This enzyme stimulates the secretion of the adipokinetic hormone, which is similar to glucagon. This hormone acts differently than insulin, it acts like an opposite. It tells the body when to release sugar or food that is needed for hyperactivity. The body will use up its energy stores until it finds food.

Associate professor of biology Erik Johnson and his research team at Wake Forest University turned off the AMP-activated kinase, the cells the decreased the sugar release and the hyperactivity response stopped nearly completely. Even when the fruit flies where facing starvation.

Johnson said, “Since fruit flies and humans share 30 percent of the same genes and our brains are essentially wired the same way, it suggests that this discovery could inform metabolic research in general and diabetes research specifically. The basic biophysical, biochemical makeup is the same. The difference in complexity is in the number of cells. Why flies are so simple is that they have approximately 100,000 neurons versus the approximately 11 billion in humans.”

Due to the findings of this investigation, neat future medical advances could take place.

One of those medical advances is in diabetes research. The adipokinetic hormone in an insect is similar to the hormone glucagon found in humans. Glucagon raises the blood sugar levels and insulin reduces them. In humans, it is very hard to study the glucagon system because the pancreatic cells are hard to pull apart. By studying the fruit flies remarkable similar hormone, a cure for diabetes could be just around the corner.

Another medical advancement is in weight loss.

Johnson said, “Exercise stimulates AMP-activated kinase, so manipulation of this molecule may lead to getting the benefits of exercise without exercising. When you turn off AMP-activated kinase, you get fruit flies that eat a lot more than normal flies, move around a lot less, and end up fatter.”

A new chemical could be the answer to treating metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes suggests biologists at the UC San Diego.

Diabetes is a huge concern across the United States, particularly due to obesity. However, there are many other reasons why a person might develop type 2 diabetes.

The chemical does not directly control the glucose production in the liver, it affects the activity of a key protein that regulars the internal mechanisms of our daily night and day lives, out biological clock.

It has been suspected for years that obesity and diabetes walk hand in hand and that they could both be linked to issues with the biological clock. Using this theory, lab mice were used, their biological clocks altered and dealing with issues of obesity and diabetes.

A couple of years ago, a team led by the dean of the Division of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego Steve Kay, made a discovery. The team discovered the first biochemical link between the biological clock and diabetes. Cryptochrome, a key protein that regulates the biological clocks of mammals, insects and plants and it also regulates the glucose production in the liver. They also discovered that in altering the levels of the protein, they could improve the health of the diabetic mice.

Kay and his team discovered a small molecule, one that can be created into a drug, can control the detailed molecular cogs and timekeeping mechanisms of cryptochrome so that it can be repressed by the production of glucose by the liver. Humans, much like mice and other animals have evolved biochemical mechanisms so that a steady supply of glucose can flow to the brain, when we are not active or eating.

“We found that if we increased cryptochrome levels genetically in the liver we could inhibit the production of glucose by the liver,” said Kay.

Kay said. “At the end of the night, our hormones signal that we’re in a fasting state. And during the day, when we’re active, our biological clock shuts down those fasting signals that tell our liver to make more glucose because that’s when we’re eating.”

The cause of diabetes comes from an accumulation of glucose in the blood that can lead to health issues such as blindness, kidney failure, strokes and heart disease. There are two types of diabetes; type 2 diabetes is most common in Americans and type 1 is typically caused by the destruction of insulin producing cells in the pancreas results in the high blood sugar.

Joslin Diabetes Center scientists have recently indentified biological mechanisms through glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which is known as a gut hormone that protects against kidney disease also has the same mechanisms that slow down the same actions in diabetes. These findings will possibly lead to new therapeutic agents which can help to prevent hyperglycemia on renal endothelial cells.

Diabetic complications come in many different forms but one of those is through renal complications known as diabetic nephropathy. Diabetic nephropathy is one of the most life threatening complications from diabetes that most often leads to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). About 44 percent of people who have been diagnosed with diabetes in the United States have ESRD, which requires either a kidney transplant or dialysis.

George King, M.D., lead author of the study and chief scientific officer, head of the Dianne Nunnally Hoppes Laboratory for Diabetes Complications and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School said, “We are very eager to develop new treatments for diabetic kidney disease.”

GLP-1 is an incretion hormone that is produced in the intestine upon the intake of food. It increases the insulin within the pancreas and slows down the absorption of glucose from the gut which reduces the action of glucagon. This all has a huge impact on lowering glucose levels in the blood. It also reduces appetite as well.

Different studies have shown that GLP-1 also improves renal endothelial cells. These cells regulate blood clotting, blood vessel activity and immune response and other issues that are damaged through insulin resistance. GLP-1 receptors are abundant in the intestine and can also be found in the kidneys and endothelium as well.

Through the Joslin study, the effects of GLP-1 in non-diabetic and diabetic mice were investigated. These mice has and over expression of the enzyme PKCB (protein kinase C-beta). This is produced in excess when the glucose in the blood is high. Excessive amounts of PKCB can lead to diabetic complications, which includes kidney disease. Through PKCB, Ang II, a peptide hormone that affects renal filtration and blood flow and regulates blood pressure, increases and accelerates the progression of kidney disease.

Dr. King says, “We’ve been interested in diabetic kidney disease for a long time, particularly the role of PKCβ and Ang II in promoting kidney damage. We were interested in investigating how GLP-1 could protect against the effects of hyperglycemia on renal function.”

“Two major findings were discovered through the Joslin study, mechanisms were identified by which GLP-1 can induce protective actions on the glomerular (renal) endothelial cells by inhibiting the signaling pathway of Ang II and its pro-inflammatory effect and also demonstrated a dual signaling mechanism by which hyperglycemia through PKCB activation can increase the Ang II action and inhibit GLP-1’s protective effects by reducing the expression with diabetes are more sensitive to Ang II; our data suggests one reason why,” says Dr. King.

“We now know that increased PKCβ decreases GLP-1R which makes the kidney less responsive to treatment with GLP-1-based drugs. Possible new treatments could combine PKCβ inhibitors with higher doses of GLP-1 agonists. GLP-1 is one potential pharmaceutical that could both lower glucose and minimize the toxic effects of Ang II to lower the risk of kidney diseases,” says Dr. King.

An extended trial of a drug that is commonly used for people who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, an oral DPP-4 inhibitor Linagliptin (Tradjenta) is safe and effective in its ability to lower glucose levels for up to 102 weeks by itself or with a combination of other oral anti-diabetic medication.

The trial consisted of 2,121 people who took part of four recent 24-week randomized, double-blind, and placebo controlled trials and were monitored for 78 weeks more.

During the study, 1,532 people had recently received Linaglipin and continued to do so throughout the study while 589 people received placebo during the 78-week run of the trial.

Participants came from all walks of life, from 231 sites in 32 countries such as Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.

David R Owens, Professor Emeritus, Centre for Endocrinology and Diabetes Sciences at Cardiff University, Wales, UK said, “Initial 24-week trials showed that linagliptin, either on its own or with other glucose-lowering agents, was effective in improving glycemic control without weight gain or an independent increased risk of hypoglycemia (reduced blood sugar levels). Linagliptin works by blocking the action of DPP-4, an enzyme that destroys the hormone GLP-1, which helps the body produce more insulin when it is needed.”

The drug was given once daily, orally, in all cases. Many times it was given on its own and other times it was used in a combination of others drugs like metformin or metformin plus a sulphonylurea or pioglitazone.

The study found that the average age among the participants was 57.5 years and 75 percent of the participants where younger than 65. 51.8 percent were male and 52.5 percent were diagnosed more than five years ago.

Some participants has side effects, however they were either mild or moderate. A rare few (3.8 percent) were severe and 3.4 percent has to stop use of the drug altogether. Collectively, 14.3 percent has drug-related adverse effects.

Some participants (13.9 percent) also experienced hypoglycemia (low blood sugar as well and 6.9 percent was related to the drug.

Professor Owens concludes, “This is the largest data set of long-term clinical evidence for linagliptin to date. Findings from the 78-week open-label extension involving 2,121 people with type 2 diabetes demonstrate sustained glycemic control for up to 102 weeks treatment duration. They also provide evidence that supports the efficacy and tolerability profile seen in previously reported 24-week studies.

“Therefore this extension study shows that linagliptin is an effective and well tolerated therapy for the long-term management of type 2 diabetes.”

Diabetes is a disease that is sweeping across the globe; so many people have been diagnosed with diabetes. Just in America alone, more than 25 million people have diabetes.

While diabetes has no cure, more drugs have shown a great improvement when it comes to the disease. One of those drugs is called Metformin and it is helping with more than just diabetes. Metformin has also shown great side effects as well, brain cell growth. This particular drug supports the growth of new neurons in the brain.

When studied, the results of Metformin were seen to make mice smarter than they were before, before the drug was administered. The result of the study has brought a great amount of hope the therapies that are designed to help to repair the brain.

Lead author of the study, Freda Miller of University of Toronto-affiliated Hospital for Sick Children said, “The discovery is an important step toward therapies that aim to repair the brain not by introducing new stem cells but rather by spurring those that are already present into action, says the study’s lead author.”

The drug is safe for the use of children who have been diagnosed with diabetes, which makes it a great alternative medication to helping children who are suffering a health issue that deals with the brain.

Recent research by Miller’s team laid out the groundwork for the recent study known as aPKC-CBP, which is well-known for its role in telling neural stem cells where and when to distinguish into mature neurons. The same pathway, aPKC-CBP is important for the metabolic effects of Metformin in liver cells.

Miller says, “We put two and two together.”

It was believed that if Metformin activated CBP in the liver, then it could possibly do that for neural stem cells of the brain and stimulate brain repair. To connect the two, a study was administered to mice. The mice began taking Metformin, which showed an increase in the birth of new neurons.

So far, there is no major evidence to see if this popular drug works in humans but it is very clear that mice are getting brain boosts with it. There is a great hope that Metformin will be a great cure where Alzheimer’s disease is concerned.

Miller says, “ It had been thought those improvements were the result of better diabetes control, but it now appears that Metformin may improve Alzheimer’s symptoms by enhancing brain repair.

Researchers hope that Metformin might be a huge help in curing brain issues that are related to cancer, trauma and even Alzheimer’s disease in the near future.

Recently, researchers have found that fruit flies, who are overeating in the area of carbohydrates and protein not only have a shorter life span but they gain weight and develop insulin resistance as well.

Insulin resistance is a common problem that is linked Type 2 diabetes; poor diet and obesity are also linked to it as well. In the United States alone, more than 25 million people have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and another million more will be diagnosed by this time next year. It is a growing disease, despite the strides made from researchers to find a successful cure.

Biologists from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas now say they have developed a tool that could help researchers to understand the disease more.

Researchers have always used mice, rats and other animals when it comes to diabetic genetic and metabolic changes. Now, they are turning to a different species, fruit flies. Recently, fruit flies have been used to investigate an array of human disease such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Fruit flies have two advantages when it comes to the investigation of these diseases, they don’t live very long and they are inexpensive. Through investigation, an insulin-resistant fruit fly was created in a lab at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Feeding fruit flies a high diet in nutrients accomplished it, reported Johannes H. Bauer, the principal investigator for the investigation. It is the same process, which happens in humans, overeating to the point of obesity and then developing insulin resistance.

Since the same process is seen between humans and fruit flies, they can serve as an efficient model for studying type 2 diabetes.

Bauer states, “We learned that by manipulating the nutrients of fruit flies, we can make them insulin resistant. With this insulin-resistant model we can now go in with pinpoint precision and study the molecular mechanisms of insulin resistance, as well as drug treatments for the condition, as well as how to treat obesity, how to block insulin resistance and how metabolic changes from a specific diet develop. The possibilities are endless.”

Carbohydrates and protein are two overfeeding diets that cause insulin resistance. Insulin itself is produced from the pancreas and is a hormone that communicates with our cells, which allows for the absorption of glucose. Glucose is necessary because it helps the brain to function, makes repairs to our bodies and allows us to grow and move.

During the investigation, researchers implemented their testing strategies two separate ways. One, by feeding fruit flies, carbohydrates and two, by feeding fruit flies, protein. Researchers believed that the fruit flies that were fed carbohydrates would develop insulin resistance but were surprised to find that the fruit flies fed the protein diet appeared to develop insulin resistance at a quicker rate. Bauer said, “ Carb-loaded flies gain weight. Protein-loaded flies gain and then lose weight. So the two diets have exactly opposite effects on metabolism. But too much of either one of them causes insulin resistance. That surprised us.”

Diabetes affects more than 25 million people in the United States and plagues its victims with serious medical conditions such as neuropathy, retinopathy and amputation.  As of late, obesity appears to be the leading cause of diabetes.

According to researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, oil derived from the seeds of wild almond trees can help to fight off obesity and diabetes.

Wild almond tree oil, also known as sterculic oil has the ability to influence particular microorganisms that are living within our stomachs.  A study showed that adding sterculic oil to the diets of laboratory mice, who were obese, increased their sensitivity to insulin. This happened due to the effect of wild almond tree oil, it was able to effect three types of microorganisms that live inside the mice’s stomachs.

Shreya Ghosh, PhD and a student in environmental engineering at Missouri S&T said, “That researchers saw a statistically significant improvement in glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity in the obese mice.”

However when lean mice were given the same sterculic oil, there were no affects.

Previous studies at the University of Missouri of Columbia have found sterculic oil to suppress the bodily enzyme stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1 (SCD1). SCD1 is associated to insulin resistance, which is a huge factor in type 2 diabetes and obesity.

For the experiment, 28 male mice were studied, 14 of them obese and the other 14 normal size and each one about five weeks old. The mice were separated into four groups and fed a standard diet, 0.5 percent of sterculic oil was also added. Recording of weight, food consumptions and glucose levels were taken over a nine-week period.

Once that nine-week period was up, researchers at King Abdullah Institute of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia looked into the results, comparing diet, improved glucose and the groups of microbes. The obese mice that were fed the sterculic oil did not experience weight loss but researchers did find evidence to support a possible new lead in controlling both weight gain and diabetes.

Many studies have been experimented with to find a cure, or at least an effective treatment for diabetes. While there have been several great herbal remedies pop up in the recent years of medical science, there is no still no common cure or treatment for diabetes. One can help that wild almost tree oil can help to rectify that.

What do these three conditions have in common after a woman is over 60 years of age?

It has been known that there is an increased risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer if a woman is obese, particularly after the age of 60, but new information is being released that there is now a link between breast cancer, obesity and diabetes, with this being the first time that the link with diabetes has clearly been evident.  If a woman is over the age of 60 and obese, she has an increased risk of breast cancer and diabetes, conditions that are life threatening.

Researcher Dr. Hakan Olsson, Professor of Oncology at Lund University in Lund, Sweden, will present his study results the week of December 5, 2011, at the 2011 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

For his study results, Olsson reviewed the medicals records of more than 2,700 patients.  This review of the 2,700 patients covered up to a 10-year span before the patients were diagnosed with breast cancer.  As well, he studied records for approximately 20,500 patients who never developed cancer.  In essence, the study was looking at the population as a whole and not just women with breast cancer.

If a woman was obese after the age of 60, she had a 55 percent increased risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer.  An example:  While 15 of 100 obese women, at the most, would be diagnosed with breast cancer, less than 10 of the 100 women in the general populace would be expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer, Olsson stated.  Also, up to four years after being diagnosed with diabetes, women of any age had a 37 percent higher risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer.

As far as cholesterol levels, Olsson found a connection between low levels of blood lipids (fat), mostly cholesterol, and a 25 percent higher risk of breast cancer.  Women with higher cholesterol levels had a lower risk of a breast cancer diagnosis, and Olsson stated that this unusual finding needs to be further studied.

Olsson also found that the medication used by a female to control their diabetes also seemed to influence their breast cancer risk.  Lantus (Glargine) was linked with a nearly doubled risk of breast cancer.  But, Metformin (Glucophage, Fortamet and others) was linked with a slightly lower risk.

Olsson stated that the study numbers were not high enough to come to a final determination that there is a direct link between a cancer diagnosis risk and diabetes medication, and if someone were concerned that they should consult with their doctor about what type medication was best for them.

Because Olsson’s study results were present at a medical meeting, the conclusions are considered preliminary until such time as they are published in a journal that has been peer reviewed.

Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, Director of Women’s Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, commented on the new study results:  “The new finding is the diabetes and cancer link.”  But, she added, that it did not surprise her.  “We’ve known that obesity is associated with breast cancer,” and, she noted, “a lot of obese people have diabetes.”

She added a message for women who wish to minimize their breast cancer risk:  “Maintain a healthy weight and avoid diabetes, which will also help their heart health.”

Dr. Olsson plans to continue his research, particularly regarding the cholesterol level results and breast cancer connection.