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THE HYPOTHESIS In Type 2 diabetes, insulin-producing cells revert to an earlier developmental state. THE INVESTIGATORS Chutima Talchai and Dr. Domenico Accili, Columbia University... The hormone insulin helps shuttle glucose, or blood sugar, from the bloodstream into individual cells to be used as energy. But the body can become resistant to insulin, and the beta cells of the pancreas, which produce the hormone, must work harder to compensate. Eventually, the thinking goes, they lose the ability to keep up. “We used to say that the beta cells poop out,” said Alan Saltiel, director of the Life Sciences Institute at the...

Modern wheat is a "perfect, chronic poison," according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist who has published a book all about the world's most popular grain. Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s," he said on "CBS This Morning." "This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about everybody else...

Shedding pounds may be a better way to promote cardiovascular health than avoiding the saltshakerThe latest news reports about salt are enough to make a parent ponder a household ban on pizza and cold cuts. A study published last week in Pediatrics found that children eat, on average, 3.4 grams of sodium daily—more than twice the amount recommended for adults by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). News outlets, including the Associated Press and USA Today, explained that, according to the study, the quarter of American kids who eat the most sodium are twice to three times as likely to develop...

Walking or other light exercise after meals may reduce glucose levels by more than half in both healthy people and type 1 diabetes patients.... Dr. Yogish Kudva, who led the study at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, stated that, "Minimal activity sustained for 30 minutes (walking 0.7 miles in 33 minutes) lowers post-meal glucose concentrations. Such activity has little or no risk for almost everybody."

The future health of Natives may lie in the scatological remains of the past—a vanguard study of ancient excrement has offered fresh new ways of thinking about the prevalence of diabetes among Native people of the American Southwest. Karl Reinhard, a professor of forensic science and environmental archaeology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has studied the fossilized feces, or coprolites, of ancestral Pueblo people and documented typical Pueblo diets prior to European contact. He has determined that the overwhelming prevalence of diabetes among Pueblo descendants may stem from their radical departure from the healthy diets of their progenitors. According to...

Curcumin shows promise in fighting devastating viruses. It stopped the potentially deadly Rift Valley Fever virus from multiplying in infected cells, says Aarthi Narayanan, lead investigator on the new study and a research assistant professor with Mason's National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases. "Curcumin is, by its very nature, broad spectrum," Narayanan says. "However, in the published article, we provide evidence that curcumin may interfere with how the virus manipulates the human cell to stop the cell from responding to the infection." Ultimately, curcumin could be part of drug therapies that help defeat these [deadly] viruses, Narayanan says. "I...

At its most fundamental level, diabetes is a disease characterized by stress -- microscopic stress that causes inflammation and the loss of insulin production in the pancreas, and system-wide stress due to the loss of that blood-sugar-regulating hormone. Now, researchers led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have uncovered a new key player in amplifying this stress in the earliest stages of diabetes: a molecule called thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP). The molecule, they've discovered, is central to the inflammatory process that leads to the death of the cells in the human pancreas that produce insulin. "This molecule...

One of the world's oldest vaccines now has a new use. Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, or BCG, is an 80-year-old vaccine designed to tread tuberculosis. Bit it has now been found effective in treating long-term type 1 diabetes, which is on the rise worldwide. BCG has long been administered to children in developing countries to guard against tuberculosis. But in a recent clinical trial, researchers at Harvard Medical School found the vaccine was also able to increase insulin production in patients with type 1 diabetes. Dr. Denise Faustman, the lead researcher, says the team was able to cure type 1 diabetes in...

Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have identified a mechanism that can give energy-storing white fat some of the beneficial characteristics of energy-burning brown fat. The findings, based on studies of mice and of human fat tissue, could lead to new strategies for treating obesity and type 2 diabetes. The study was published August 2 in the online edition of the journal Cell. Humans have two types of fat tissue: white fat, which stores excess energy in the form of triglycerides, and brown fat, which is highly efficient at dissipating stored energy as heat. Newborns have a relative abundance of...

Third-trimester microbiota resembles that of people at risk of diabetes. Women's gut microbe populations change as pregnancy advances, becoming more like those of people who might develop diabetes. These changes, which do not seem to damage maternal health, correspond with increases in blood glucose and fat deposition thought to help a mother nourish her child. Although scientists have profiled microbial communities around the world and throughout the human body, this is the first time they have tracked the gut microbiome during pregnancy, says Ruth Ley, a microbiologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who led the work1. Ley had...

UNIVERSITY of Sydney researchers could be on to a remedy to fight blindness caused by long-term diabetes. Lead researcher Professor Basil Roufogalis said pharmacy researchers have identified the ancient Tibetan goji berry could help fight diabetic retinopathy. "Diabetic retinopathy is a leading cause of blindness for people with diabetes, with up to 60 per cent of people living with either type one or type two diabetes developing chronic hyperglycaemia, a condition which can damage retina cells," he said. Prof Roufogalis said the goji berry is abundant in taurine. "We found that goji berry protected against the death of cells caused...

NEW YORK (AP) — Medical professionals who favor a proposed ban on large-sized sugary drinks likened soda companies to Big Tobacco at a public hearing Tuesday, saying the plan would protect the public, while opponents accused the city of playing Big Brother and wondered what tasty but unhealthy foods might be targeted next. New York City's health board heard hours of testimony on a proposed rule that would limit soft-drink cup and bottle sizes at food service establishments to no larger than 16 ounces. Medical experts spared no rhetoric in hailing Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal as a way to protect...

The ancient Native Americans of the desert Southwest subsisted on a fiber-filled diet of prickly pear, yucca and flour ground from plant seeds, finds a new analysis of fossilized feces that may explain why modern Native Americans are so susceptible to Type II diabetes. Thousands of years of incredibly fibrous foods, 20 to 30 times more fibrous than today's typical diet, with low impact on the blood sugar likely left this group vulnerable to the illness when richer Anglo foods made their way to North America, said study researcher Karl Reinhard, a professor of forensic sciences at the University of...

Public release date: 5-Jul-2012 Contact: Elisabeth (Lisa) Lyons elyons@cell.com 617-386-2121 Cell Press Diabetes drug makes brain cells grow 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 Freda Miller of the University of Toronto-affiliated Hospital for Sick Children. The fact that it's a drug that is so widely used and so safe makes the news all that much better. Earlier work by Miller's team highlighted a pathway known as aPKC-CBP for its essential...

A WOMAN’S life was saved by a dog when she slipped into a coma while home alone. Blind diabetic Suzanne West, 42, would have died when she fell into a six-hour-long diabetic coma if her partner’s guide dog Herbie hadn’t licked and cuddled her to keep her alive. Miss West came round covered in dog hair and saliva on her bed at home in Creekmoor, Poole, at around 11.30pm on Wednesday with the faithful pooch by her side. Woozy, she managed to crawl over to pull her life line and call for help. And when paramedics arrived, Herbie, a seven-year-old...

In a move that could significantly expand insurance coverage of weight-loss treatments, a federal health advisory panel on Monday recommended that all obese adults receive intensive counseling in an effort to rein in a growing health crisis in America. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force urged doctors to identify patients with a body mass index of 30 or more — currently 1 in 3 Americans — and either provide counseling themselves or refer the patient to a program designed to promote weight loss and improve health prospects. Under the current healthcare law, Medicare and most private insurers would be required...

Scientists say they have identified a possible genetic link between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. It has been known for some time that people with diabetes have a much higher risk of developing Alzheimer's, but not why this is so.Now US researchers writing in Genetics say a study of worms has indicated a known Alzheimer's gene also plays a role in the way insulin is processed. ..... < snip > ..... A key indication of Alzheimer's, which can only be seen after death, is the presence of sticky plaques of amyloid protein in decimated portions of patients' brains. Scientists have already...

Finding raises hopes for new anti-obesity medications New York, NY (June 7, 2012) — Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have identified a brain receptor that appears to play a central role in regulating appetite. The findings, published today in the online edition of Cell, could lead to new drugs for preventing or treating obesity. “We’ve identified a receptor that is intimately involved in regulating food intake,” said study leader Domenico Accili, MD, professor of Medicine at CUMC. “What is especially encouraging is that this receptor belongs to a class of receptors that turn out to be good targets...

It seems that while the practice of bloodletting throughout history had little or no effect on most diseases, and the practice was abandoned in the 19th century, new research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine demonstrates that blood donation has real benefits for obese people with metabolic syndrome. Two sessions of bloodletting were enough to improve blood pressure and markers of cardiovascular disease.

Cooksey v. Futrell, et al. Can the government throw you in jail for offering advice on the Internet about what food people should buy at the grocery store? That is exactly the claim made by the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition. In December 2011, diabetic blogger Steve Cooksey started a Dear Abby-style advice column on his popular blog (www.diabetes-warrior.net) to answer reader questions. One month later, the State Board informed Steve that he could not give readers advice on diet, whether for free or for compensation, because doing so constituted the unlicensed, and thus criminal, practice of dietetics. The State...