The Past Year Has Brought Many Discoveries In The Study Of Diabetes.
Even as the peril of diabetes continues to grow, scientists have made significant discoveries in the life year that might one era lead to ways to stop the blood sugar bug in its tracks. That's some good news as World Diabetes Day is observed this Sunday 4rx day. Created in 1991 as a collaborative project between the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization to institute more attention to the public health threat of diabetes, World Diabetes Day was officially recognized by the United Nations in 2007.
One of the more titillating findings in type 1 diabetes research this year came from the lab of Dr Pere Santamaria at University of Calgary, where researchers developed a vaccine that successfully reversed diabetes in mice. What's more, the vaccine was able to aim only those protected cells that were leading for destroying the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. "The hope is that this work will translate to humans," said Dr Richard Insel, superintendent scientific officer for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation 4 celebrities errors. "And what's stimulating is that they've opened up some pathways we didn't even know were there".
The other avenue of order 1 research that Insel said has progressed significantly this year is in beta cubicle function. Pedro Herrera, at the University of Geneva Medical School, and his team found that the adult pancreas can indeed regenerate alpha cells into functioning beta cells. Other researchers, according to Insel, have been able to reprogram other cells in the body into beta cells, such as the acinar cells in the pancreas and cells in the liver.
This kind of chamber manipulation is called reprogramming, a different and less complex process than creating induced pluripotent stem-post cells, so there are fewer potential problems with the process, he said. Another exciting happening that came to fruition this past year was in type 1 diabetes management. The first closed circle artificial pancreas system was officially tested, and while there's still a long way to go in the regulatory process, Insel said there have been "very cheering results".
Unfortunately, not all diabetes news this past year was fabulous news. One of the biggest stories in type 2 diabetes was the US Food and Drug Administration's ruling to restrict the sale of the type 2 diabetes medication rosiglitazone (Avandia) surrounded by concerns that the drug might increase the risk of cardiovascular complications. The industrialist of Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline, was also ordered to get an independent review of clinical trials run by the company.
