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Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine reported today that the cause of obesity and insulin resistance may be tied to the fructose your body makes in addition to the fructose you eat. In recent years the role of added sweeteners, such as high fructose corn syrup and table sugar (sucrose), has taken center stage as risk factors for obesity and insulin resistance. Numerous studies suggest that the risk from added sugars may be due to the fructose content. But in the study published in the Sept. 10 edition of Nature Communications, the team led by researchers at...

Is sugar toxic and the cause of the obesity epidemic? Here’s a great new video called Toxic Sugar. It’s a recent segment from the major Australian science program Catalyst, on ABC. It’s arguably the best 18-minute introduction ever made on the true causes of the obesity epidemic. The program features the #1 enemy of the sugar industry: professor Robert Lustig. Also appearing: science writer Gary Taubes and obesity expert professor Michael Crowley. See it and then tell your friends. This needs to be seen by a lot of people

Blueberries, grapes, and apples offer the strongest health benefits.Science is finding more health benefits from blueberries—but raising more concerns about fruit juice. According to a new study by Harvard University researchers, eating whole fruits helps ward off diabetes, while drinking juice can actually raise the risk of developing the disease.In a study published in the British Medical Journal, nutrition experts report that consumption of certain fruits—especially blueberries—cut people’s risk of type 2 diabetes by as much as 26 percent in a survey of more than 180,000 subjects over two and a half decades.Study participants were asked about their consumption of...

The same protein tells beta cells in the pancreas to stop making insulin and then to self-destruct as diabetes worsens, according to a University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) study published online today in the journal Nature Medicine. Specifically, the research revealed that a protein called TXNIP controls the ability of beta cells to make insulin, the hormone that regulates blood-sugar levels. "We spent years confirming that TXNIP drives beta-cell death in both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes," said Anath Shalev, M.D., director of the UAB Comprehensive Diabetes Center and senior author of the paper. "We were astounded to...

NIH scientists identify possible treatment target for type 2 diabetesResearchers at the National Institutes of Health have clarified in rodent and test tube experiments the role that inflammation plays in type 2 diabetes, and revealed a possible molecular target for treating the disease. The researchers say some natural messenger chemicals in the body are involved in an inflammatory chain that can kill cells in the pancreas, which produces insulin. A report of the finding appears online in Nature Medicine.“This study is a significant milestone in an ongoing exploration of the endocannabinoid system’s role in the metabolic complications of obesity,” says...

Because there are apparently not enough studies to convince the Food and Drug Administration that controversial chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) should not be used in just about every form of food packaging, yet another study has been published linking BPA to childhood obesity. Meanwhile, a separate study released today showed a possible connection between a widely used plasticizer and diabetes. Both studies are to be published in the September 2013 edition of the journal Pediatrics and are currently available for free online. The first study [PDF] investigated the relationship between levels of BPA in urine and subjects’ body mass index (BMI),...

Diabetic rats control blood glucose better after weight-loss surgery. A procedure increasingly used to treat obesity by reducing the size of the stomach also reprogrammes the intestines, making them burn sugar faster, a study in diabetic and obese rats has shown. If the results, published today in Science1, hold true in humans, they could explain how gastric bypass surgery improves sugar control in people with diabetes. They could also lead to less invasive ways to produce the same effects. “This opens up the idea that we could take the most effective therapy we have for obesity and diabetes and come...

Researchers have come closer to the “Holy Grail” of treatment for people with type 1 diabetes. They have successfully transplanted insulin-producing islet cells from one species into another without the use of immunity-suppressing drugs. In the future this could provide an unlimited supply of tissue to treat people whose bodies cannot produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that delivers glucose - a form of sugar that the body uses for fuel - to cells for energy. Since the immune systems of people with type 1 diabetes attack and destroy the islet cells that produce insulin, many...

Children predisposed to type 1 diabetes are better off waiting until 4 months of age to consume solid foods Infants at risk of type 1 diabetes who receive their first solid foods between ages 4 months and 6 months appear less likely to develop the condition than others given solid food before or after that time window, a new study finds. Type 1 diabetes, which can strike children at any age, occurs when an aberrant immune reaction kills cells in the pancreas, requiring a person to take insulin shots. Two studies in 2003 found an association between early first foods...

This morning, Roche announced that it was stopping all clinical trials of an experimental diabetes drug called aleglitazar because it was not preventing heart attacks and strokes as the company expected, but was causing side effects that reportedly included heart failure, kidney problems, and an increase in fractures....

A new study shows patients newly diagnosed with type-2 diabetes fare better when they are given a 3-drug combination compared to conventional therapy with one anti-diabetic medication. The finding that comes from researchers at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio was presented June 22 at the 73rd Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in Chicago.Ralph DeFronzo, M.D., chief of the Diabetes Division in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio presented findings from a two-year study that included 134 participants at the University Health System's Texas Diabetes Institute.The...

Obese mice were given the drug Amlexanox lost weight. (credit: University of Michigan)ANN ARBOR (WWJ) - Could a drug used to treat canker sores be a miracle weight-loss solution? Researchers at University of Michigan are working to find out.Back in February, U-M researchers discovered that mice given the prescription drug, Amlexanox, lost weight without diet or exercise. Now, Dr. Elif Oral, an associate professor of internal medicine at U-M’s Metabolism, Endocrinology & Diabetes (MEND) division, is beginning the first human study to determine whether the drug will have the same effect in people.“The weight loss together in improved glucose metabolism...

A once-daily injection to transform the treatment of diabetes has been approved for NHS use. The lixisenatide jab means sufferers would no longer have to inject themselves before or after every meal or snack. At present many of the 3 million Britons with diabetes – whose bodies do not absorb sugar from food, leading to dangerously high levels in the blood – are tied to a strict regime of injections.

Adults with diabetes can begin to realize many of these health benefits with even modest reductions in body weight and modest increases in physical activity. People undergoing weight management and increased physical activity have no difference in heart attacks and strokes, a new study has suggested. The landmark study investigating the long-term effects of weight loss on the risks of cardiovascular disease among patients with Type 2 diabetes, which was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh and at clinical facilities throughout the United States, the multicenter clinical trial investigated the effects of an intensive lifestyle intervention program, intended to achieve...

A clinical trial for a Type 1 diabetes vaccine has resulted in promising findings, suggesting there may be a future where we can prevent people from getting the disease. Researchers completed a 12-week trial on a DNA-based vaccine on 80 subjects with Type 1 diabetes. The patients were able to maintain levels of a blood-borne intermediary that can stimulate insulin production, and some subjects were able to increase levels. That suggests the cellular changes that occur in patients with Type 1 diabetes may be shut down.  "We're very excited by these results, which suggest that the immunologist's dream of shutting...

It may be possible to reverse type 1 diabetes by training a patient's own immune system to stop attacking their body, an early trial suggests. Their immune system destroys the cells that make insulin, the hormone needed to control blood sugar levels. A study in 80 patients, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, showed a vaccine could retrain their immune system. Experts described the results as a "significant step". Normally a vaccine teaches the immune system to attack bacteria or viruses that cause disease, such as the polio virus. Researchers at the Stanford University Medical Centre used a vaccine...

Tuesday June 25, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new report published in Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism suggests that eating foods or drinking beverages with fructose may increase risk of endothelial dysfunction, insulin resistance/diabetes mellitus type 2 and hypertension. Z. Khitan and D. H. Kim, the authors of the report, from Marshall University Joan Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington, WV, USA say that uric acid resulting from uncontrolled fructose metabolism is the risk factor for metabolic syndrome and diabetes mellitus. What happens, according to the report, after fructose is ingested is that the sugar in the liver bypasses two highly...

Doctors are reporting a major step toward an “artificial pancreas,” a device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed. A key component of such a system—an insulin pump programmed to shut down if blood sugar dips too low while people are sleeping—worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients. This “smart pump,” made by Minneapolis-based Medtronic Inc., is already sold in Europe, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reviewing it now. Whether it also can be programmed to mimic a real pancreas and constantly adjust insulin based...

The controversial diabetes drug Avandia should stay on the market for now, with relaxed restrictions on its use, Food and Drug Administration advisers said on Thursday.The FDA has been reconsidering its approval of Avandia, which was the world’s No. 1 diabetes drug until research showed it could raise the risk of heart attacks and other heart dangers. Since then, its use has been heavily restricted and prescriptions have plummeted, and the FDA wanted to know if it was worth even keeping the drug on the market.The agency’s expert panel of advisers said the data is clearly confusing and they were...

Obesity surgery worked much better at reducing and even reversing diabetes than medication and lifestyle changes in one of the most rigorous studies of its kind. But the researchers and others warn that possible serious complications need to be considered. The yearlong study indicates that the most common weight-loss surgery, gastric bypass, can effectively treat diabetes in patients with mild to moderate obesity — about 50 to 70 pounds overweight, the researchers reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Other studies have shown the operation can reverse diabetes in severely obese patients, although sometimes the disease comes...