There is lots to learn about diabetes. But a discovery that would change how the disease is treated shows how far more there may be to learn.
Turning on beta sales
In type 1 diabetes, the body's immune system attacks the pancreas, a small organ that sits within the lower abdomen. This attack destroys insulin-producing cells within the pancreas, called beta cells. Without enough insulin, muscle cells cannot absorb sugar from the blood. Blood sugar levels rise, wreaking havoc throughout the body. Type 1 diabetes will be life-threatening if left untreated. Even with treatment, normally every day injections of insulin, type 1 diabetes often results in heart disease, vision problems, and neurological problems.
In the more common type 2 diabetes, muscles resist the motion of insulin, causing blood sugar to rise. As the pancreas secretes increasingly more insulin, the beta cells can eventually burn out.
Over the years, Melton and his colleagues made a surprising discovery: the pancreas could make recent beta cells, even in individuals with type 1 diabetes. “Old” pancreatic cells can divide, becoming young. Unfortunately, the pancreas is just not naturally in a position to make enough recent beta cells to interchange those killed by diabetes.
Melton and colleagues reasoned that there could also be some chemical signal that prompts beta cells to divide and grow. gave Sale The paper details their search and discovery of such a signal in mice. It is a hormone called betatrophin. This hormone, made by the liver and fat cells, travels through the blood to the pancreas. There, it signals existing beta cells to grow and divide, creating recent beta cells.
In diabetic mice, turning on betatrophin production by the liver and fat cells led to a rise in beta cells and a dramatic improvement in blood sugar.
More to be done.
It will definitely take lots of research in mice after which in humans to find out if this newly discovered hormone can work as a diabetes treatment. So it's too early to get excited that betatrophin's discovery will translate directly into recent diabetes treatments.
This work is the most recent example of a serious scientific discovery that has been made prior to now twenty years. We are learning that the human body has more power to heal itself naturally than we ever thought. Scientists around the globe are working to find ways to stimulate the body's own natural healing mechanisms, as Dr. Melton and his colleagues are doing.
In the United States, this work and other vital research is threatened by the “sequester,” which is cutting funding for medical research. It can be a shame if a very important discovery like Melton's was lost as a result of political squabbles. Regardless of what you consider federal spending typically, should you share my view that we shouldn't cut funding for health research and public health, you'll be able to do what I did. What is it. Write your representatives in Congress to revive cuts to medical research.