Diabetes Research

A detailed study conducted by a team from the University of Athens on the Aegean island of Ikaria has demonstrated that moderate consumption of coffee by hypertensive elderly individuals can lead to improvements in aortic distensibility, according to a presentation at the European Society of Cardiology's Congress 2010 in Stockholm.

Individuals with insomnia and objective short sleep duration are at increased risk for developing diabetes, according to a research abstract that will be presented on June 9, at Sleep 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

A study in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Sleep found an elevated risk of death in men with a complaint of chronic insomnia and an objectively measured short sleep duration. The results suggest that public health policy should emphasize the diagnosis and appropriate treatment of chronic insomnia.

A diabetes drug taken by up to 100,000 patients increases the risk of heart attacks and should be withdrawn on safety grounds, senior doctors say today. A report by the British Medical Journal says Avandia should never have been licensed in Britain because its risks outweigh its benefits. One UK expert has calculated that the drug may cause as many as 1,000 extra heart attacks a year in Britain.

People who sleep less than six hours a night may be three times more likely to develop a condition which leads to diabetes and heart disease, according to researchers at the University of Warwick.

Biologists have found that a key protein that regulates the biological clocks of mammals also regulates glucose production in the liver and that altering the levels of this protein can improve the health of diabetic mice.

Garlic has "significant" potential for preventing cardiomyopathy, a form of heart disease that is a leading cause of death in people with diabetes, scientists...

Insulin resistance, a condition in which insulin produced by the body becomes less effective in reducing blood glucose levels, appears to be associated with an increased risk of stroke in individuals without diabetes, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

For the first time, researchers in Sweden have found out what effect multiple, rather than just single, foods with anti-inflammatory effects have on healthy individuals. The results of a diet study show that bad cholesterol was reduced by 33 per cent, blood lipids by 14 per cent, blood pressure by 8 per cent and a risk marker for blood clots by 26 per cent. A marker of inflammation in the body was also greatly reduced, while memory and cognitive function were improved.

High doses or prolonged use of glucosamine causes the death of pancreatic cells and could increase the risk of developing diabetes, according to a team of researchers at Université Laval's Faculty of Pharmacy. Details of this discovery were recently published on the website of the Journal of Endocrinology.

A new study has found that regular consumption of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a clear and consistently greater risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. According to the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, the study provides empirical evidence that intake of sugary beverages should be limited to reduce risk of these conditions.

Researchers have identified a hormone produced and secreted by the liver as a previously unknown cause of insulin resistance. The findings, in the November issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, suggest a new target for the treatment of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, the researchers say.