Insulin in Biological News

Nanodiamonds deliver insulin for wound healing

Bacterial infection is a major health threat to patients with severe burns and other kinds of serious wounds such as traumatic bone fractures. Recent studies have identified an important new weapon for fighting infection and healing wounds: insulin. Now, using tiny nanodiamonds, researchers at ...

Findings show insulin -- not genes -- linked to obesity

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have uncovered new evidence suggesting factors other than genes could cause obesity, finding that genetically identical cells store widely differing amounts of fat depending on subtle variations in how cells process insulin. Learning the precise mechanism resp...

Decreasing insulin resistance prevents obesity-related cardiovascular damage

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Knocking out one gene that contributes to insulin resistance appears to prevent much of the cardiovascular damage typically associated with obesity, researchers say. Cardiovascular disease is the biggest health threat of obesity and Medical College of Georgia researchers trying t...

For insulin sensitive overweight patients, 1 session of exercise improves metabolic health

HILTON HEAD, SCOne out of every three Americans is obese. These individuals are at greater risk for additional diseases, since obesity leads to other health problems, such as diabetes. Obesity-related complications are associated with an abnormal fat metabolism in the muscle. As a result, a...

Treatment corrects severe insulin imbalance in animal studies

Researchers have used a drug to achieve normal levels of blood sugar in animals genetically engineered to have abnormally high insulin levels. If this approach succeeds in humans, it could become an innovative medicine for children with congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare but potentially devastatin...

Trans-fatty acids and insulin sensitivity

Trans-fatty acids have been the topic of a lot of negative health news, but in the July Journal of Lipid research, a dietary study in rats suggests that trans-fats do not increase the risk of insulin resistance and diabetes, which may ease at least one area of concern. Epidemiological studie...

A single mechanism for hypertension, insulin resistance and immune suppression

Many of the 75 million Americans with essential hypertension also develop diabetes and other complications in addition to their high blood pressure, and researchers have discovered a common molecular mechanism in a strain of rat that explains why such metabolic disorders arise together in mammals....

Bypassing the insulin highway

An immune cell known as a neutrophil releases a protein that can suppress glucose production in the liver without targeting insulin, researchers have found. Neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, produce special immune proteins called defensins which seem to have a connection with glucose le...

Botched production of insulin molecule may lead to diabetes

ANN ARBOR, Mich. Picture a pretzel factory production line, with conveyer belts carrying the dough, formed into unbaked pretzels, down to the oven to be cooked. Now imagine what would happen if pretzel dough started to overflow the mixer and oozed as a blob onto the conveyor, misshapen, and s...

Drug could improve pregnancy outcomes in wider range of women with insulin resistance

St. Louis, Sept. 6, 2007 Women who are obese, have type 2 diabetes or a family history of type 2 diabetes could one day have more successful pregnancies because of a study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. This study, performed in mice, suggests that Metformin, the mos...

Sugary drinks, not fruit juice, may be linked to insulin

BOSTON (Sept. 5, 2007) Steady increases in consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages over the last several decades, as well as rates of Type 2 diabetes mellitus, led nutritional epidemiologists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University and col...

Replacing insulin is top-ranked breakthrough foreseen for health in developing world

Eliminating the need for costly insulin injections for diabetics, regenerating heart muscle after it fails, and improving resistance to disease by engineering immune cells top a list of 10 potential breakthroughs for health in developing countries seen emerging from the new world of regenerative me...

Hap1 protein links circulating insulin to brain circuits that regulate feeding behavior in mice

Researchers have discovered how the protein Hap1, which is abundant in the brain's hypothalamus, serves as the link between circulating insulin in the blood and the neural circuitry that controls feeding behavior in mice. Illumination of the neural pathway used by hormones to regulate appetite an...

New cell transplantation technique restores insulin production in diabetics

Researchers are using a new cell transplantation technique to restore the cells that produce insulin in patients with type 1 diabetes. The method is minimally invasive, with few complications. The study was presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). ...

Mouse with designer liver has enhanced glucose tolerance, insulin response

A collaborative effort led by The Burnham Institute's Gen-Sheng Feng has created a mouse with improved glucose tolerance and insulin activity in the liver, and generated new findings about insulin-signaling in the liver that could prove useful in understanding the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes. T...

NIH Researchers Discover How Insulin Allows Entry of Glucose Into Cells

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have discovered the critical sequence of events by which insulin stimulates the entry of glucose into fat cells. The study, appearing in the May 9 Journal of Cell Biology, was conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Child Health ...

Stem cells from brain transformed to produce insulin at Stanford

With careful coaxing, stem cells from the brain can form insulin-producing cells that mimic those missing in people with diabetes, according to a paper published in the April 26 issue of PLoS Medicine. Although the work is not yet ready for human patients, Seung Kim, MD, PhD, the lead author and ...

PCRM develops world's first cruelty-free insulin assay

If you're an organization dedicated to humane alternatives to the use of animals in research and you want to conduct research of your own that requires using animals as part of the testing, what do you do? In the case of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, you invent your own test. ...

Adult stem cells from human cord umbilical cord blood successfully engineered to make insulin

In a fundamental discovery that someday may help cure type 1 diabetes by allowing people to grow their own insulin-producing cells for a damaged or defective pancreas, medical researchers here have reported that they have engineered adult stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood to prod...

The way you eat may affect your risk for breast cancer

...than by directly starving cancers of energy. In particular, lower levels of insulin are associated with reduced food intake, and this may be protective," said ...llak suggested that lifestyle and pharmacologic methods to reduce IGF-1 and insulin deserve ongoing investigations. Cleary agreed, stating that these results m...

Research shows rates of severe childhood obesity have tripled

...syndrome, a group of risk factors for heart attack, stroke and diabetes. These risk factors include higher-than normal blood pressure, cholesterol and insulin levels. "These findings demonstrate the significant health risks facing this morbidly obese group," wrote the researchers in their report. "This p...

Common allergy drug reduces obesity and diabetes in mice

... is a strictly metabolic condition in which cells grow increasingly deaf to insulin signals and thus lose their ability to metabolize glucose. In both cases, g...gist. "It's possible that the inflammation caused by macrophages results in insulin resistance. And it's more likely, from what we've just seen, that Tregs are...

UTMB study identifies women at risk of gaining excessive weight with injectable birth control

... mechanisms include glucocorticoid-like activity, how the body breaks down simple carbohydrates such as glucose, and DMPA-associated interference with insulin action. Previous findings seem to argue against the theory that weight gain could be due to the drug's perceived effects on increased caloric intake a...

Two dietary oils, two sets of benefits for older women with diabetes

...l but younger than age 70, and had Type 2 diabetes but did not need to take insulin to treat the disease. Many did take other medications, such as those used t... fat tissue ends up in the liver or muscles a condition that could lead to insulin resistance and diabetes if that fat can't be used. Neither CLA nor the l...

Genetically engineered mice yield clues to 'knocking out' cancer

...eveloped severe obesity, dyslipidemia (abnormal levels of lipids in the blood), fatty liver disease and hyperinsulinemia (excess levels of circulating insulin in the blood). In humans, these disorders are collectively known as metabolic syndrome, a condition that affects more than 40 million persons in the U...

The battle for CRTC2: How obesity increases the risk for diabetes

...ly the most important factor in the development of insulin resistance, but science's understanding of the cha...ion in the liver, an important step on the path to insulin resistance. In healthy people, a "fasting swit...It had been well established that obesity promotes insulin resistance through the inappropriate inactivation ...

Engineered pig stem cells bridge the mouse-human gap

...These large animals share a remarkably similar biology to humans, as evidenced by their already extensive contributions to medicine, such as using pig insulin to treat diabetes or pig heart valves in transplant surgery. The research group modified the current iPS protocols to successfully generate a line of ...

Continuous glucose monitoring technology -- special issue of Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics

..., MD, from the University of Washington School of Medicine (Seattle), concludes that CGM, "is only a tool to help patients make better decisions about insulin and food. Until we have a closed-loop system or islet cell transplant, human behavior will continue to dictate the success of a patient with his or he...

UCSF discovers new glucose-regulating protein linked with diabetes

...both human and mouse muscles in a special compartment that releases it upon insulin stimulation. Fat cells also form a GLUT4 compartment and take up glucose in...tes, however, the muscle and fat cells fail to respond appropriately to the insulin and the GLUT4 compartment is abnormal. This process was thought to be ident...

Study shows CGM devices also benefit people with type 1 diabetes

...plications Trial (DCCT) showed that with intensive insulin therapy, excellent blood glucose control was obtai...diabetes for at least one year, who either used an insulin pump or took at least three daily insulin injections, and had HbA1c levels below 7.0%. Sub...

Gene therapy could expand stem cells' promise

...ecome beating heart cells might mistakenly end up in the brain. Or insulin-producing beta cells which can't stop means the body can no longer regulate insulin levels. "You've totally lost control," Dr. Crystal says. "What do you do?" The best chance of circumventing these issues is genetic modification...

InVitria to Unveil Powerful Cell Culture Media Component ZAP-CHO

...a-derived albumin, bovine serum albumin and other sources of recombinant albumin. * Lacromin —Lacromin is a CHO growth-factor that outperforms insulin and IGF-1. About InVitria - www.InVitria.com InVitria develops, manufactures and markets a portfolio of high performance and well defined cel...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- May 13, 2009

...ody's inability to produce or use insulin. Newer research now suggests that insulin is critical for healthy nerve cells in the brain. As the hormone declines i...eat Alzheimer's in the same way as diabetes, which includes giving patients insulin or other medications including so-called "insulin sensitizing" drugs the ...

Blood testing, mosquito style

... periods of time or test their blood more frequently, even while they're asleep. Eventually, Mintchev and Kaler hope to integrate a pump system so insulin injections can also become autonomous based on data from the e-Mosquito, thus converting the device into an external artificial pancreas. "It's imp...

Drinking 100 percent fruit juice is associated with lower risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome

...men, with evidence showing that 100% juice drinkers were leaner, had better insulin sensitivity and had lower risk for obesity and metabolic syndrome a cluste...had lower mean Body Mass Index (BMI), smaller waist circumference and lower insulin resistance (as estimated by homeostasis model assessment, HOMA). The resear...

LSUHSC student awarded top national honor for diabetes research

...s mellitus type 1 results from the destruction or dysfunction of islets and their beta cells. Type 2 diabetes results from the body's inability to use insulin properly and a gradual decrease in the pancreas's ability to make it. Through a series of experiments, the LSUHSC research team found that ACE2 gene ...

ASBMB Annual Meeting to feature talks on the biochemistry of aging

...will discuss some of his group's work in manipulating the levels of various insulin receptor substrates in mice. Insulin-like signaling regulates the storage a...restingly, though, in lower animals like fruit flies and nematodes, reduced insulin secretion can extend lifespan. White will show some interesting studies sug...

Open access research celebrated

...search articles: Biology Award Basil Honegger, University of Zrich Imp-L2, a putative homolog of vertebrate IGF-binding protein 7, counteracts insulin signaling in Drosophila and is essential for starvation resistance Honegger B, Galic M, Khler K, Wittwer F, Brogiolo W, Hafen E, Stocker H Journal ...

Device protects transplanted pancreatic cells from the immune system

...em cell-derived tissue should be transplanted in the future. Type 1 diabetes results from an autoimmune response wherein the body attacks and kills insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas. One of the challenges of cell transplantation therapy to treat diabetes is the need for long term immunosuppress...

CFI awards $854,098 to University of Montreal and partners

...r. She will study the number of particles that carry cholesterol in the blood, otherwise known as low density lipoproteins (LDL), as a risk factor for insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes. "My research explores a novel hypothesis that high concentrations of LDL particles may be a promoter rather than ...