Endocannabinoids are substances produced by several cells in the body that are very similar to compounds found in cannabis plants. They have been implicated in the development of many effects of a high-fat diet, including many risk factors for type 2 diabetes: obesity, insulin resistance, leptin resistance, and dyslipidemia.

Women with gestational diabetes are at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes, with almost 20% of women developing the condition within 9 years of pregnancy, found a large, population-based study of 659,000 women published in CMAJ.

Despite strong evidence that type 2 diabetes can be prevented or at least delayed by a combination of lifestyle changes and good dietary advice, a team of Cochrane Researchers found that there is no indication whether dietary advice alone can prevent the disease.

Using community-based health advocates, delivering information within same-gender groups or adapting dietary and lifestyle advice to fit a particular community's likely diet can help people with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar levels, certainly for up to six months, following health education.

Sirtris, a GlaxoSmithKline company focused on discovering and developing small molecule drugs to treat diseases of aging such as Type 2 Diabetes, is included among a research team that reported in online edition of Cell Metabolism that mice treated at middle-age to the end-of-life with resveratrol showed an overall health improvement, including improved bone health, a reduction in cataracts and cardiovascular dysfunction, and improved balance and motor coordination.

Seniors with type 2 diabetes may experience memory declines immediately after eating unhealthy meal

Women with type 2 diabetes and heart disease have poorer control of both diseases and receive less intensive medical treatment than do men, a large new study found. The results will be presented at The Endocrine Society's 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

The risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) for people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been found to be comparable to the risk of CVD in people with type 2 diabetes, according to the conclusions of two studies presented today at EULAR 2008, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism in Paris, France.

A study by the University of Southern California (USC) suggests the release of lipids from abdominal fat, which drains directly to the liver, increases overnight, providing additional insight as to how abdominal fat is associated with type 2 diabetes risk.

For patients with type 2 diabetes, a condition called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) may be an important risk factor for diabetes-related chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a study in the August Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).

Scientists have found that consuming cocoa flavanols – naturally occurring compounds in cocoa – may offer a benefit to those affected by type-2 diabetes.

Intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), which results in a baby having a low weight at birth, has been linked to the development of type 2 diabetes in adulthood. It has been suggested that this is because the expression of key genes is altered during fetal development and that this affects disease susceptibility later in life.