Diabetes Research

United States and Japanese researchers have identified a key step in metabolic pathways linked to diabetes and cancer. The study on activation...

New findings by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center suggest that serotonin -- a brain chemical known to help regulate emotion, mood and sleep -- might also have anti-diabetic properties.

Metformin, a drug used in type 2-diabetes might have the potential to also act against Alzheimer's disease. This has been shown in a study from scientists of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), the University of Dundee and the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics.

The brain contains more cholesterol than any other organ in the body, has to produce its own cholesterol and won't function normally if it doesn't churn out enough. Defects in cholesterol metabolism have been linked with Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. Now researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have discovered that diabetes can affect how much cholesterol the brain can make.

Australian scientists have shown for the first time that even modest weight loss reverses many of the damaging changes often seen in the immune cells of obese people, particularly those with Type 2 diabetes.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have demonstrated that certain T cells require input from monocytes in order to maintain their pro-inflammatory response in people with type 2 diabetes (T2D). The study also showed, for the first time, how a loss in homeostasis in this group of T cells most likely promotes chronic inflammation associated with T2D.

Scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and collaborators from other institutions have identified a natural substance in dairy fat that may substantially reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. The compound, trans-palmitoleic acid, is a fatty acid found in milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter. It is not produced by the body and so only comes from the diet.

An ingredient found in abundance in birch bark appears to have an array of metabolic benefits, according to new studies in animals that are reported in the January issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication.

Simply taking more steps every day not only helps ward off obesity but also reduces the risk of diabetes, finds a study published on the British Medical Journal website. While several studies have shown that physical activity reduces body mass index and insulin resistance -- an early stage in the development of diabetes -- this is the first study to estimate the effects of long-term changes in daily step count on insulin sensitivity.

More young people and adults in their 30s and 40s are being hospitalized for stroke, even as stroke rates are dropping in older people, new data show. The findings, reported this week at the American Stroke Association conference in Dallas, may be a sign that that rising rates of obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure among teenagers and young adults are taking a toll. Or it may simply be that physicians have improved their diagnosis and reporting of stroke in young people during the past decade.

A recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) found that individuals with fatty liver were five times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those without fatty liver. This higher risk seemed to occur regardless of the patient's fasting insulin levels, which were used as a marker of insulin resistance.

New research by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and collaborating institutions has identified a key regulator of fat cell development that may provide a target for obesity and diabetes drugs.