The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, funded by JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), discovered that the growth of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas is connected to a hormone in the body that's responsible for stress. If regeneration of the hormone becomes possible, then type 1 diabetes treatment could turn into a cure.
Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong disease that occurs when the pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin to keep the body's blood glucose levels high enough to function properly. The more common type of diabetes, type 2, occurs for the same reason, but blood glucose is always too high and must lowered.
When a stress hormone was increased in model animals at a rate to force insulin-producing cells to increase, more insulin was produced, thus aiding blood glucose levels. By improving the body's ability to produce insulin on its own, diabetes treatment could revolutionized, even possibly cured.
The focus is based on the CRF (corticotropin-releasing factor) hormone, established in the 1980s. This hormone regulates the stress response in bodies. CRF apparently directly effects how the pancreas creates insulin producing cells.
"We found that beta cells in the pancreas actually express the receptor for CRF," explains Dr. Huising, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Clayton Foundation Laboratories. "And once we had established the presence of CRF in these cells, we started filling in the blanks, trying to learn as much as we could."
The cure doesn't begin there, as Dr. Vale, another fellow states "Being able to stimulate beta cells to divide a little faster may be part of a solution that may ultimately, hopefully, allow management of type 1 diabetes. But because it is an autoimmune condition, making the cells divide won't be enough. That is why researchers are working hard to solve the problem of destruction of beta cells."
Diabetes research and treatment is always at the forefront of current events. The FDA will be approving more diabetes treatment drugs this year and research is released everyday regarding diabetes symptoms, diagnosis and new treatments. Diet, as most know, is the best and most important way to control blood sugar, but diabetics, millions of them, are still relying on invasive, insulin treatment.
Written by Amy Munday
Huliq.com
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