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Former Senate Leader Harry Reid endorsed Mitt Romney as the next Republican presidential nominee in 2020. “I think that he would be a great foil against Trump, and I think that Republicans may even allow him to be nominated to be the Republican nominee,” Reid said. “That would be good for the country.” The former Democratic Senate Leader praised Romney in a recent interview with Nevada radio station KNPR.

It's President James Garfield's birthday - when he was shot, Alexander Graham Bell showed up with a metal detector to try to locate the bullet. Born in Moreland Hills, Ohio to a widowed farm wife, Garfield worked at a series of menial jobs but eventually attended Williams College, graduating in 1856. He entered politics as a Republican and served in the Ohio State Senate until the outbreak of the Civil War, in which he saw combat as a Union major general. In 1862 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served in that body until 1880, after...

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has undergone surgery for pancreatic cancer. The operation, first reported on Twitter by KLAS-TV journalist George Knapp and confirmed by a source close to the powerful former lawmaker, took place Monday morning. “They caught it early. The doctors believe it went well, and he is expected to make a full recovery,” the source told The Nevada Independent. Reid, 78, served for 30 years in the Senate before retiring following a debilitating eye injury. He was succeeded by Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. Along with Republican former House Speaker John Boehner, Reid is co-chair of...

"The pancreas can be triggered to regenerate itself through a type of fasting diet, say US researchers," BBC News reports. Research in mice found a low-calorie diet may help in cases of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The pancreas is an organ that uses specialised cells known as beta cells to produce the hormone insulin, which the body uses to break down sugars in the blood (glucose). In type 1 diabetes the pancreas stops producing insulin. In type 2 diabetes either not enough insulin is produced or cells in the body fail to respond to insulin (insulin resistance). Mice...

Scientists have made big progress on a “bionic pancreas” to free some people with diabetes from the daily ordeal of managing their disease. A wearable, experimental device passed a real-world test, constantly monitoring blood sugar and automatically giving insulin or a sugar-boosting drug as needed, doctors said Sunday. The device improved blood-sugar control more than standard monitors and insulin pumps did when tested for five days on 20 adults and 32 teens. Unlike other artificial pancreases in development that just correct high blood sugar, this one also can fix too-low sugar, mimicking what a natural pancreas does. …

An extreme eight-week diet of 600 calories a day can reverse Type 2 diabetes in people newly diagnosed with the disease, says a Diabetologia study. The 11 participants in the study were all diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes within the previous four years. Newcastle University researchers found the low-calorie diet reduced fat levels in the pancreas and liver, which helped insulin production return to normal. Three months after the end of the diet, when participants had returned to eating normally and received advice on healthy eating and portion size, most no longer suffered from the condition.

CINCINNATI—A new study shows that vitamin D deficiency could be linked to the development and severity of certain autoimmune lung diseases. These findings are being reported in the Jan. 4 edition of the journal Chest. Brent Kinder, MD, UC Health pulmonologist, director of the Interstitial Lung Disease Center at the University of Cincinnati and lead investigator on the study, says vitamin D deficiencies have been found to affect the development of other autoimmune diseases, like lupus and type 1 diabetes. "We wanted to see if lack of sufficient vitamin D would also be seen in patients who are diagnosed with...

Most Americans and Canadians up to age 70 need no more than 600 international units (IUs) of vitamin D per day to maintain health, and those 71 and older may need as much as 800 IUs, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The amount of calcium needed ranges, based on age, from 700 to 1,300 milligrams per day... > A large amount of evidence, which formed the basis of the new intake values, confirms the roles of calcium and vitamin D in promoting skeletal growth and maintenance and the amounts needed to avoid poor bone health. >...

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?

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...