Nov 1, 2024 05:04 PM
(This post was last modified: Nov 1, 2024 10:15 PM by C C.)
How does overeating lead to diabetes? A surge of neurotransmitters
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-0...-z#ref-CR1
INTRO: People with obesity are ten times more likely to develop diabetes compared to lean people. Researchers trying to understand why have found an answer in the same system that drives the body’s fight-or-flight response. The findings, in mice, challenge long-held assumptions about how eating too much can make you sick.
The study suggests that consuming a high-fat diet triggers a surge of neurotransmitters across the body, leading to the rapid breakdown of fatty tissue in the liver — a process usually kept in check by the release of insulin. The liberation of high levels of fatty acids is linked to a host of health conditions, from diabetes to liver failure.
Researchers previously thought that the main problem in obesity-driven diabetes was faulty insulin activity, which means that the body cannot stop the dangerous release of fatty acids. But “instead of the breaks not functioning”, the latest study finds that there is a separate lever — neurotransmitters in the liver and other tissues — pressing hard on the accelerator, says Martina Schweiger, a biochemist at University of Graz, Austria. “This is indeed a paradigm shift.”
The study was published in Cell Metabolism on 21 October... (MORE - details, no significant ads)
In a 1st, scientists reversed type 1 diabetes by reprogramming a person's own fat cells
https://www.livescience.com/health/diabe...-fat-cells
EXCERPTS: For the first time, scientists in China reprogrammed a woman's fat cells to turn them into insulin-making pancreatic cells that reversed her type 1 diabetes.
The feat adds to a growing body of evidence that reprogrammed stem cells could one day be used to treat or cure the chronic disease. The patient treated in the recent study still doesn't need any injected insulin a year out from her procedure.
These findings are "very exciting," said Dr. Kevan Herold, the C.N.H. Long professor of immunobiology and of medicine at Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research.
[...] In the new study, which was published Thursday (Oct. 31) in the journal Cell, scientists took fat cells from a patient with type 1 diabetes and used chemicals to revert them back into "pluripotent" stem cells, meaning they could turn into any type of cell.
After reverting the cells to this state, the scientists chemically coaxed them to become islet cells. These new islet cells were then implanted in the patient's abdomen.
Before undergoing this experimental treatment, the patient struggled to control her blood sugar, spending less than half her time in a "target" healthy blood sugar range, said study lead author Hongkui Deng, a researcher at the Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences at Peking University in Beijing. After the patient's cell transplant, her time in the target zone "improved to over 98%," Deng told Live Science in an email.
By 75 days after the transplant, the patient no longer needed to inject insulin to control her blood sugar... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-0...-z#ref-CR1
INTRO: People with obesity are ten times more likely to develop diabetes compared to lean people. Researchers trying to understand why have found an answer in the same system that drives the body’s fight-or-flight response. The findings, in mice, challenge long-held assumptions about how eating too much can make you sick.
The study suggests that consuming a high-fat diet triggers a surge of neurotransmitters across the body, leading to the rapid breakdown of fatty tissue in the liver — a process usually kept in check by the release of insulin. The liberation of high levels of fatty acids is linked to a host of health conditions, from diabetes to liver failure.
Researchers previously thought that the main problem in obesity-driven diabetes was faulty insulin activity, which means that the body cannot stop the dangerous release of fatty acids. But “instead of the breaks not functioning”, the latest study finds that there is a separate lever — neurotransmitters in the liver and other tissues — pressing hard on the accelerator, says Martina Schweiger, a biochemist at University of Graz, Austria. “This is indeed a paradigm shift.”
The study was published in Cell Metabolism on 21 October... (MORE - details, no significant ads)
In a 1st, scientists reversed type 1 diabetes by reprogramming a person's own fat cells
https://www.livescience.com/health/diabe...-fat-cells
EXCERPTS: For the first time, scientists in China reprogrammed a woman's fat cells to turn them into insulin-making pancreatic cells that reversed her type 1 diabetes.
The feat adds to a growing body of evidence that reprogrammed stem cells could one day be used to treat or cure the chronic disease. The patient treated in the recent study still doesn't need any injected insulin a year out from her procedure.
These findings are "very exciting," said Dr. Kevan Herold, the C.N.H. Long professor of immunobiology and of medicine at Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research.
[...] In the new study, which was published Thursday (Oct. 31) in the journal Cell, scientists took fat cells from a patient with type 1 diabetes and used chemicals to revert them back into "pluripotent" stem cells, meaning they could turn into any type of cell.
After reverting the cells to this state, the scientists chemically coaxed them to become islet cells. These new islet cells were then implanted in the patient's abdomen.
Before undergoing this experimental treatment, the patient struggled to control her blood sugar, spending less than half her time in a "target" healthy blood sugar range, said study lead author Hongkui Deng, a researcher at the Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences at Peking University in Beijing. After the patient's cell transplant, her time in the target zone "improved to over 98%," Deng told Live Science in an email.
By 75 days after the transplant, the patient no longer needed to inject insulin to control her blood sugar... (MORE - missing details)