Diabetes
Diabetics with Alzheimer’s have slower memory loss
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People who have both Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes have slower rates of memory loss than people who just have Alzheimer’s disease, French researchers said on Tuesday.
They studied 600 Alzheimer’s patients for four years and found those who had both Alzheimer’s and diabetes—about 10 percent of the total—scored far better on twice yearly memory and thinking tests than those with Alzheimer’s who did not have diabetes.
“This result was surprising,” said Dr. Caroline Sanz of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research, whose study appears in the journal Neurology.
Ethnic Background May Be Associated with Diabetes Risk
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Fat and muscle mass, as potentially determined by a person’s ethnic background, may contribute to diabetes risk, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
Obesity, a worldwide health concern, is associated with increased insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The prevalence of obesity is increasing in all populations across the globe, yet past research has found that body fat distribution varies widely among different ethnic groups. Researchers in this study investigated which ethnic groups were most likely to be at increased risk for diabetes due to higher total body fat and lower muscle mass.
“We know certain ethnic backgrounds show significant differences in amounts of body fat and lean mass,” said Scott Lear, PhD, of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada and lead author of the study.
Future Diabetes Treatment May Use Resveratrol to Target the Brain
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Resveratrol, a molecule found in red grapes, has been shown to improve diabetes when delivered orally to rodents. Until now, however, little has been known about how these beneficial changes are mediated in the body. A new study accepted for publication in Endocrinology, a journal of The Endocrine Society, shows that the brain plays a key role in mediating resveratrol’s anti-diabetic actions, potentially paving the way for future orally-delivered diabetes medications that target the brain.
Resveratrol activates sirtuins, a class of proteins that are thought to underlie many of the beneficial effects of calorie restriction. Previous studies in mice have provided compelling evidence that when sirtuins are activated by resveratrol, diabetes is improved. Sirtuin activators are now being tested in humans as anti-diabetic compounds.
Sirtuins are expressed virtually everywhere throughout the body and until now, little has been known about what tissues mediate resveratrol’s beneficial effects. Knowing where in the body the beneficial effects of activated sirtuins are mediated could help in the development of more effective targeted diabetes medications.
Childhood Cancer Survivors Exercise Less, Increasing Diabetes Risk
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In a study of adults who survived cancer as children, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators found that many survivors lead sedentary lifestyles and are more likely to be less physically active than their siblings. Childhood cancer survivors are at greater risk of diabetes, obesity and heart disease than the rest of the population.
Cancer treatments such as cranial radiation can damage the hypothalamus and pituitary; the result is an abnormal metabolism, which increases the risk of obesity and diabetes. Also, chemotherapy with the drug anthracycline increases the risk of heart disease; and radiation to the body can cause blood vessels to become less pliant.
“Physical activity is a key step that survivors can take to reduce the health risk of these effects,” said Kiri Ness, Ph.D., of the Epidemiology and Cancer Control department at St. Jude. “Medical center programs to encourage physical activity in adult survivors could help significantly. However, one problem is that researchers have not firmly established the factors that affect cancer survivors’ participation in physical activity.”
Inner Workings of Molecular Thermostat Point to Pathways to Fight Diabetes, Obesity
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Inner Workings of Molecular Thermostat Point to Pathways to Fight Diabetes, Obesity, According to Penn Study
Best known as the oxygen-carrying component of hemoglobin, the protein that makes blood red, heme also plays a role in chemical detoxification and energy metabolism within the cell. Heme levels are tightly maintained, and with good reason: Too little heme prevents cell growth and division; excessive amounts of heme are toxic.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered a molecular circuit involving heme that helps maintain proper metabolism in the body, providing new insights into metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes.
Pitt study finds molecular link between insulin resistance and inflammation
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An exploration of the molecular links between insulin resistance and inflammation may have revealed a novel target for diabetes treatment, say scientists at the John G. Rangos Sr. Research Center, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. Their findings were published earlier this month in the online version of Diabetes, one of the journals of the American Diabetes Association.
Signs of low-grade systemic inflammation are not uncommon among people who have the pre-diabetic condition known as metabolic syndrome, as well as in animal models of obesity and type 2, or insulin-resistant, diabetes, said senior author H. Henry Dong, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
“But it’s not yet clear if there is a cause-and-effect relationship between chronic exposure to low-grade inflammation and the onset of insulin resistance,” he explained. “Other studies have shown that in patients who have inflammation and diabetes, insulin-sensitizing drugs seem to reduce inflammation while anti-inflammatory therapies improve sensitivity to insulin.”
Mild glucose intolerance in pregnancy may be associated with cardiovascular risk
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Mild glucose intolerance in pregnancy may be an early identifier of women who are at increased risk of heart disease in the future, found a new study http://www.cmaj.ca/press/cmaj090569.pdf published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca.
In a large population-based cohort study, researchers from the University of Toronto and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) studied data on 435,696 women in Ontario, Canada, who gave birth between April, 1994 and March, 1998. All women were followed until March 31, 2008. The study excluded women with pre-existing diabetes.
As cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Canadian women, it is important to identify early predictors of future vascular risk. While women with gestational diabetes have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than those without, it previously has not been known whether mild glucose intolerance in pregnancy is associated with heart disease. The study sought to answer this question.
Landmark survey highlights needs of unpaid caregivers of people with diabetes
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The Hormone Foundation, the public education affiliate of The Endocrine Society, in collaboration with the National Alliance for Caregiving, today released key findings from a first-of-its-kind survey (http://www.hormone.org/Public/diabetes_caregiver.cfm) aimed at better understanding the daily needs and struggles of unpaid caregivers of people with diabetes.
The online survey completed by 1,002 respondents in April 2009 found that the major challenges in caring for those with diabetes include exercise and diet compliance, patient depression and maintaining target sugar levels. Caregivers reported that the physician is their top information source, followed by the Internet. However, while 73 percent of caregivers reported using the Internet to obtain diabetes information, many expressed frustration in evaluating the quality and reliability of online content.
Specific survey findings include:
Childhood cancer treatment may raise diabetes risk
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Cancer survivors who got radiation treatments as children have nearly twice the risk of developing diabetes as adults, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
They said children who were treated with total body radiation or abdominal radiation to fight off cancer appear to have higher diabetes risks later in life, regardless of whether they exercise regularly or maintain a normal weight.
The odds of surviving childhood cancer have improved with better therapies but several research teams have found that some treatments pose health risks later in life.
Drug cuts diabetics’ pancreatic cancer risk: study
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Diabetics who took the drug metformin, which makes the body process insulin better, had a 62 percent lower risk of pancreatic cancer compared to those who had never received it, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.
But the risk of getting the cancer, one of the deadliest, was significantly higher among diabetics who took insulin or drugs that make the body produce more insulin, according to their study published in the journal Gastroenterology.
“We find that diabetics that had ever used metformin alone or in combination with other drugs had like a 60 percent reduced risk for pancreatic cancer, compared to diabetic patients who never used metformin,” lead researcher Donghui Li from The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center said.
Diabetes Gene Raises Odds of Lower Birth Weight
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Pediatric researchers have found that a gene previously shown to be involved in the development of type 2 diabetes also predisposes children to having a lower birth weight. The finding sheds light on a possible genetic influence on how prenatal events may set the stage for developing diabetes in later childhood or adulthood.
Researchers from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine published the study July 10 in the online version of the journal Diabetes.
“It’s a bit unusual to find a gene linked to both prenatal events and to a disease that occurs later in life,” said study leader Struan F.A. Grant, Ph.D., a researcher at the Center for Applied Genomics of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “This gene variant carries a double whammy, in raising the risk of both lower birth weight and the development of type 2 diabetes in later life.”
Early telemedicine try didn’t cut Medicare costs
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A telemedicine program designed to help Medicare beneficiaries with type 2 diabetes take care of their health didn’t cut costs, and had only a “modest” effect on patients’ health, researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care.
But that doesn’t mean that similar interventions can’t help patients and reduce health care spending, according to Dr. Lorenzo Moreno of Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., in Princeton, New Jersey, who led the research.
“Increased home-based tele-visits from nurses and self-tracking of progress could improve patients’ self care behaviors,” Moreno noted in a statement. “These improvements could help participants avoid long-term health complications, which in turn would reduce use of acute care services, hospitalizations, and Medicare costs.”
Natural Compound Stops Diabetic Retinopathy
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Oklahoma City, OK—Researchers at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center have found a way to use a natural compound to stop one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States. The research appears online this month in the journal Diabetes, a publication of the American Diabetes Association.
The discovery of the compound’s function in inflammation and blood vessel formation related to eye disease means scientists can now develop new therapies –including eye drops – to stop diabetic retinopathy, a disease which affects as many as five million Americans with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
“There is no good treatment for retinopathy, which is why we are so excited about this work. This opens an entirely new area for pharmaceutical companies to target,” said Jay Ma, the principal investigator on the project and a research partner at the OU Health Sciences Center, Dean A. McGee Eye Institute and the Harold Hamm Oklahoma Diabetes Center.
New tool finds best heart disease and stroke treatments for patients with diabetes
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Researchers from North Carolina State University and Mayo Clinic have developed a computer model that medical doctors can use to determine the best time to begin using statin therapy in diabetes patients to help prevent heart disease and stroke.
“The research is significant because patients with diabetes are at high risk for cardiovascular disease and statins are the single most commonly used treatment for patients at risk of heart disease and/or stroke,” says Dr. Brian Denton, “and this model can help determine the best course of action for individual patients based on their risk of developing cardiovascular disease.” Denton is an assistant professor in NC State’s Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering and lead author of the study.
Statins are a key component of current cardiovascular medical treatment guidelines, Denton says. They lower cholesterol levels and may significantly reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, particularly in patients that are considered to be at high risk.
Gastric bypass provides long-term diabetes control
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In more than half of obese patients with type 2 diabetes, their metabolic condition resolves after gastric bypass and they remain free from diabetes up to 16 years later, according to study findings presented last week at the 26th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery in Dallas.
In a study of 177 patients with diabetes who underwent gastric bypass for obesity, also referred to as bariatric surgery, between 1993 and 2003, the severity of diabetes before surgery was a key predictor of whether diabetes resolved in the long term. Moreover, long-term diabetes resolution correlated with the maintenance of weight loss.
“The most significant finding is that long-term resolution of diabetes seems to be linked to how severe the diabetes was at the time of surgery,” senior author Dr. James W. Maher, from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, told Reuters Health. “Patients with diet-controlled diabetes had a 75 percent likelihood of being diabetes-free at long-term followup, while the figure was 65 percent diabetes-free in patients who were originally controlled with oral medications and only 28 percent of insulin-dependent diabetics had long-term resolution.”
