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N.Korea's Kim has 'serious' pancreas disorder: report 57 mins ago TOKYO (AFP) – North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is suffering from a "serious disorder" of the pancreas, a Japanese television network reported Friday, quoting a South Korean intelligence official. The 67-year-old's condition has been the focus of much speculation since he reportedly suffered a stroke last August. The TBS network reported that Kim has been resting and is being treated at his villa in the southeasten area of Wonsan by a team specialists.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In mice implanted with human pancreatic cancer tumors, injecting live Streptococcus bacteria, similar to those that cause strep throat, directly into the tumors caused the tumors to shrink and die, German scientists report. "The utilization of live bacteria," as a danger signal, Dr. Claudia Maletzki told Reuters Health, "obviously has great potential for activating the immune system." Given the poor prognosis of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, "novel" interventions are "imperative," Maletzki and colleagues at the University of Rostock note. In culture experiments, the researchers established that streptococcal bacterium known as S. pyogenes could mediate...

New studies in the laboratory of Dr. Darwin J. Prockop, Director of Tulane University’s Center for Gene Therapy, are shedding light on the previously mysterious mechanism through which even relatively small amounts of stem/progenitor cells taken from a patient’s own bone marrow enhance repair of damaged tissues. The cells not only differentiate to replace injured cells, as had been understood, but they also stimulate the proliferation and differentiation of stem cells already present in the injured tissue and they transfer mitochondrial DNA to local cells in which the mitochondria (the energy of the cell) is not working. Better understanding of...

NEW ORLEANS, May 1 (UPI) -- A U.S. study has partly resolved the mystery of how small amounts of adult stem/progenitor cells can repair damaged brain, pancreas, and kidney cells. The researchers in the laboratory of Darwin Prockop, director of Tulane University's Center for Gene Therapy, found the cells not only differentiate to replace injured cells, but also stimulate the proliferation and differentiation of stem cells already present in the injured tissue. Prockop said a better understanding of the different mechanisms of the stem/progenitor cells suggests multiple strategies for developing new therapies for a broad range of diseases, as well...

Source: Harvard School of Public Health Date: January 17, 2007 Link Found Between Periodontal Disease And Pancreatic Cancer Science Daily — Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.; more than 30,000 Americans are expected to die from the disease this year. It is an extremely difficult cancer to treat and little is known about what causes it. One established risk factor in pancreatic cancer is cigarette smoking; other links have been made to obesity, diabetes type 2 and insulin resistance. In a new study, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and...

These findings appear to shift the paradigm as to how insulin producing pancreatic cells are disabled in diabetes, particularly the type 1 variety which is most common in children and adolescents.

Breakthrough sheds light on cause of diabetes 17:56 15 December 2006 NewScientist.com news service Alison Motluk and Linda Geddes One of the root causes of type 1 diabetes may need rethinking – the condition may be triggered by faulty nerves in the pancreas, a new study reveals. Type 1 diabetes has long been described as an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system targets islet cells in the pancreas, eventually destroying their ability to produce insulin. Without insulin, the body cannot convert glucose into energy, so people with type 1 diabetes have to regularly inject themselves with insulin to...

Young to test artificial pancreas Children in the UK with type 1 diabetes are being recruited to test an artificial pancreas. The device could allow users to more tightly control their blood glucose levels without the need for repeated jabs to test blood and give insulin. It could give people with diabetes more flexible lifestyles and defend them better from complications. The computerised glucose sensor will be tested in a trial run by Cambridge University scientists from January. The artificial pancreas is made up of the sensor, a computer programme that calculates how much insulin is needed to keep blood...

Scientists have used stem cells from human bone marrow to repair defective insulin-producing pancreatic cells responsible for diabetes in mice. The treatment also halted damage to the kidneys caused by the condition. Researchers from New Orleans' Tulane University are hopeful it can be adapted to treat diabetes in humans. The study, featured in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was welcomed as "interesting work" by Diabetes UK. Stem cells are immature cells which have the capacity to turn into any kind of tissue in the body. The US team treated diabetic mice who had high blood sugar and damaged...

Perhaps it?s not cures these scientists and advocates are really after? Perhaps it is the need to establish immunity for scientific elites from public opinion and morality that is really at stake?

Embryonic stem cells have not cured or successfully treated a single patient. Contrast that with the more than 70 conditions that are treatable using non-embryonic stem cell therapies. One of the hottest debates in bioethics today surrounds research using stem cells taken from either in vitro fertilization or cloned human embryos. From state legislatures and the halls of Congress to the United Nation, the controversy over whether to ban (or fund) such research rages. Human cloning for embryonic stem cell research creates human embryos virtually identical to a patient’s genetic composition. The embryo’s stem cells are then harvested — a...

Researchers said this week that adult stem cells in the pancreas can be transformed into insulin-producing cells. This newfound ability of endocrine progenitor stem cells in the adult human pancreas provides a major key to developing new treatments for diabetes, said researchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and the Rebecca and John Moores Cancer Center at the University of California at San Diego. The findings will be published in the March 1 edition of Nature Medicine. "We hypothesized that the inductive factors in developing pancreatic cells might work on cells in the adult pancreas and that turned out...

Several new studies suggest that diabetes increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, adding to a store of evidence that links the disorders. The studies involve only Type 2 diabetes, the most common type, which is usually related to obesity. The connection raises an ominous prospect: that increases in diabetes, a major concern in the United States and worldwide, may worsen the rising toll from Alzheimer’s. The findings also add dementia to the cloud of threats that already hang over people with diabetes, including heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, blindness and amputations. But some of the studies also hint that measures...

In one of the largest studies of its kind, UCSF researchers have found that eating lots of fruits and vegetables -- particularly vegetables -- is associated with about a 50 percent reduction in the risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is difficult to diagnose and remains largely untreatable. It kills about 30,000 people in the U.S. each year and has a five-year survival under four percent. The vegetables most strongly associated with increased protection were onions, garlic, beans, yellow vegetables (such as carrots, yams, sweet potatoes, corn and yellow squash), dark leafy vegetables and cruciferous vegetables. Light-green vegetables, tomatoes...

HARTFORD — Besides being an incredibly selfless act, donating your kidney or bone marrow to help another can be very expensive. Two local lawmakers hope to provide some relief in the form of a tax credit. Their proposal would provide a tax credit of up to $10,000 for a taxpayer who donates an organ or partial organ, such as a kidney, pancreas, intestine, lung or bone marrow. The credit would apply to surgery-related transportation, lodging and lost wages. The bill only applies to living organ donors. The bill is being co-sponsored by state Rep. Mary Ann Carson, R-New Fairfield, and...

SEATTLE - On May 30, Elizabeth Kresse became the first person in the Northwest to receive an islet transplant. The tiny cells are working to cure her diabetes. "This is big this is a life change. This is a new life ... and it's going to be a better life," said Kresse. One week later, Jackie Westcott, and another type 1 diabetic, David Ellis, would be among the first patients anywhere to receive a combination kidney and islet transplant. "I'll be limited for a while in what I can do, but after that, I'll be free to do what I...