The annual number of Americans older than 65 newly diagnosed with diabetes increased by 23 percent between 1994 to 1995 and 2003 to 2004, according to a report in the January 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

A research team led by Dr. Ciriaco A. Piccirillo of McGill University’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology has discovered that in some individuals, the specialized immunoregulatory T-cells that regulate the body’s autoimmune reactions may lose their effectiveness and become “lazy” over time, leading to the onset of type 1 diabetes.

Patients with type 2 diabetes are often advised to cut out sucrose (table sugar) all together. However, in recent years this traditional advice has been questioned by some researchers who suggest that moderate amounts of sugar can be safely consumed as part of the diet of patients with diabetes. Now a new study has been published that is consistent with this revised approach.

If the human body were a stage, then proteins would rank among the lead actors in the play we call “Life.”

A new study finds that a chemical found in the body is capable of promoting weight loss, improving insulin resistance and reversing diabetes in an animal model. The hormone is gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP) receptor blockade.

According to a new study in Clinical Transplantation, obtaining islet cells (clusters of pancreatic cells that create insulin) from living donors may be a solution to the shortage of islets available for transplantation.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC are participating in an international clinical trial currently underway to study the effectiveness of oral insulin in preventing or delaying the onset of type 1 diabetes in people at risk for the disease.

With an eye on curing diabetes, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have successfully transplanted embryonic pig pancreatic cells destined to produce insulin into diabetic macaque monkeys – all without the need for risky immune suppression drugs that prevent rejection.

A team of Mount Sinai Hospital researchers has found that a “genetic roadblock” identified in a recent study could pave the way toward novel treatments for type 2 diabetes.

Even relatively low doses of resveratrol—a chemical found in the skins of red grapes and in red wine—can improve the sensitivity of mice to the hormone insulin, according to a report in the October issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication. As insulin resistance is often characterized as the most critical factor contributing to the development of type 2 diabetes.

A new Joslin-led study has shown that leptin, a hormone known mainly for regulating appetite control and energy metabolism, plays a major role in islet cell growth and insulin secretion. This finding opens up new avenues for studying leptin and its role in islet cell biology, which may lead to new treatments for diabetes. This study appears in the October 2007 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Most clinical trials for new diabetes drugs do not consider the impact medication will have on a patient’s quality of life or other outcomes that are important to patients, such as the risk of developing complications associated with diabetes, according to a Mayo Clinic commentary in the current issue of The Lancet.