Rare Tumor Could Help Produce Insulin For Type-1 Diabetics, Studyshows
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) Researchers have a found a surprising potential ally in the search for a cure for Type-1 diabetes. Its a rare tumor that produces a lot of what diabetics are missing insulin. Type-1 diabetics have two problems. Their own immune system destroys the beta-cells that make insulin. To cure diabetes, you have to stop that autoimmune attack and then replace the destroyed beta-cells. CBS2s Dr. Max Gomez first met diabetic Alecia Wesner shortly after she was diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes at age 6. Her continuous glucose monitor and a small insulin pump have made managing her blood sugar easier, but not easy. Theres no break from Type-1 diabetes, theres no vacation, she said. Trying to manage all of this with a lot of things that beep to wake me up if something has gone too high or two low is a tremendous amount of work. What gives Alecia a lot of hope for the future is whats being done in the lab of Dr. Andrew Stewart at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He explains that even though Alecia has had diabetes for almost four decades, she still has a few beta-cells left. The key to getting them to replicate Alecias destroyed beta-cells, says Dr. Stewart, may lie in the DNA of rare benign tumors called beta-cell insulinomas. Those small insulinoma tumors in the pancreas have the genomic recipe, if you will, Dr. Stewart said. They now have the genomic wiring diagram or roadmap for knowing how to make beta-cells replicate. By sequencing every gene in these tumors, Dr. Stewart found the ones that put the brakes on beta-cell regeneration. As it turns out, certain drugs can take the brakes off the genes in normal beta-cells so they can start to divide. We found lots of candidates and were in the process now of screening drugs that take off these other br Continue reading >>
Do People With Type 1 Diabetes Make Any Insulin?
The essential definition of type 1 diabetes is that people make little or no insulin, but the answer isn't as simple as that. Type 1 diabetes most often results from an autoimmune process that leads to the loss of beta cells, the cells in the pancreas that manufacture and release insulin. Someone with fully developed type 1 diabetes will often make little or no insulin. However, the autoimmune process does not lead to a loss of insulin in one step or overnight, and some people lose their insulin production very gradually. These are usually people who are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes relatively late--in their 30s, 40s or later. When they are first diagnosed, they often still make a fair amount of insulin. They are often thought to have type 2 diabetes, and because they still make a good deal of insulin they usually respond to oral medications, reinforcing the idea that they have type 2 diabetes. However, as they continue to lose beta cells, their insulin production declines, and eventually they need insulin treatment to maintain blood sugar control. It may take several years from the time of their initial diagnosis to progress to this point. The other thing to note is that even people with fully-established type 1 diabetes differ in terms of how much insulin they make. Some people still make enough insulin to help smooth out the fluctuations in blood sugar that you typically have with insulin injections or an insulin pump. These are people who are easily controlled and have good hemoglobin A1c levels and very few episodes of hypoglycemia without very much effort. These people often have low but detectable levels of C-peptide, a marker of insulin production by the body. Other people make virtually no insulin. They typically have a much harder time achieving good blood s Continue reading >>
Type 1 Diabetes
Introduction Diabetes is a lifelong condition that causes a person's blood sugar (glucose) level to become too high. The hormone insulin – produced by the pancreas – is responsible for controlling the amount of glucose in the blood. There are two main types of diabetes: Type 1 – where the pancreas doesn't produce any insulin Type 2 – where the pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin or the body’s cells don't react to insulin This topic is about type 1 diabetes. Read more about type 2 diabetes Another type of diabetes, known as gestational diabetes, occurs in some pregnant women and tends to disappear following birth. It's very important for diabetes to be diagnosed as soon as possible, because it will get progressively worse if left untreated. You should therefore visit your GP if you have symptoms, which include feeling thirsty, passing urine more often than usual and feeling tired all the time (see the list below for more diabetes symptoms). Type 1 and type 2 diabetes Type 1 diabetes can develop at any age, but usually appears before the age of 40, particularly in childhood. Around 10% of all diabetes is type 1, but it's the most common type of childhood diabetes. This is why it's sometimes called juvenile diabetes or early-onset diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas (a small gland behind the stomach) doesn't produce any insulin – the hormone that regulates blood glucose levels. This is why it's also sometimes called insulin-dependent diabetes. If the amount of glucose in the blood is too high, it can, over time, seriously damage the body's organs. In type 2 diabetes, the body either doesn't produce enough insulin to function properly, or the body's cells don't react to insulin. Around 90% of adults with diabetes have type 2, and it tends to develop l Continue reading >>
Insulin Secretion In Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes, a chronic autoimmune disease, causes destruction of insulin-producing β-cells over a period of years. Although many markers of the autoimmune process have been described, none can convincingly predict the rate of disease progression. Moreover, there is relatively little information about changes in insulin secretion in individuals with type 1 diabetes over time. Previous studies document C-peptide at a limited number of time points, often after a nonphysiologic stimulus, and under non–steady-state conditions. Such methods do not provide qualitative information and may not reflect physiologic responses. We have studied qualitative and quantitative insulin secretion to a 4-h mixed meal in 41 patients with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes and followed the course of this response for 24 months in 20 patients. Newly diagnosed diabetic patients had an average total insulin secretion in response to a mixed meal that was 52% of that in nondiabetic control subjects, considerably higher than has been described previously. In diabetic patients there was a decline of β-cell function at an average rate of 756 ± 132 pmol/month to a final value of 28 ± 8.4% of initial levels after 2 years. There was a significant correlation between the total insulin secretory response and control of glucose, measured by HbA1c (P = 0.003). Two persistent patterns of insulin response were seen depending on the peak insulin response following the oral meal. Patients with an early insulin response (i.e., within the first 45 min after ingestion) to a mixed meal, which was also seen in 37 of 38 nondiabetic control subjects, had a significantly accelerated loss of insulin secretion, as compared with those in whom the insulin response occurred after this time (P < 0.05), and significant Continue reading >>
- Relative contribution of type 1 and type 2 diabetes loci to the genetic etiology of adult-onset, non-insulin-requiring autoimmune diabetes
- Relative effectiveness of insulin pump treatment over multiple daily injections and structured education during flexible intensive insulin treatment for type 1 diabetes: cluster randomised trial (REPOSE)
- Genetically Engineered Insulin may CAUSE Diabetes Type 1 in Type 2 Diabetics
People With Type 1 Diabetes May Still Have Insulin-producing Cells
THURSDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Most people with type 1 diabetes still have active insulin-producing cells in their pancreas, a new study shows. The finding suggests it may be possible one day to preserve or replenish these cells. Type 1 diabetes occurs when the body's immune system destroys insulin-producing beta cells, and it was believed that all these cells were lost within a few years of developing the disease. But British researchers used new technology that enabled them to detect far lower levels of insulin than was previously possible. They tested 74 people with type 1 diabetes, and found that 73 percent of them had working beta cells that produced low levels of insulin, regardless of how long they'd had the disease. The study was published in the journal Diabetologia. "It's extremely interesting that low levels of insulin are produced in most people with type 1 diabetes, even if they've had it for 50 years," study leader Dr. Richard Oram, of the University of Exeter Medical School in the United Kingdom, said in a university news release. "The fact that insulin levels go up after a meal indicates these remaining beta cells can respond to a meal in the normal way -- it seems they are either immune to attack or they are regenerating." Dr. Matthew Hobbs, head of research for Diabetes UK, added: "We know that preserving or restoring even relatively small levels of insulin secretion in type 1 diabetes can prevent hypoglycemia [low glucose levels] and reduce complications, and therefore much research has focused on ways to make new cells that can be transplanted into the body." "This research shows that some of a person's own beta cells remain, and therefore it may be possible to regenerate these cells in the future," Hobbs said. "It is also possible that unders Continue reading >>
Patients With Type 1 Diabetes Can Still Produce Insulin 40 Years Later
According to a new study, about 1/3 of people with type 1 diabetes produce insulin, as measured by C-peptide, even upward of 40 years from initial diagnosis… The findings shed new light on the long-accepted belief that patients with type 1 diabetes lose all ability to produce any insulin. The study confirmed that C-peptide is present in patients across a wide age spectrum, with greater frequency and higher values in those diagnosed as adults, compared with those diagnosed as children. They used samples from the T1D Exchange Biobank, a repository of type 1 diabetes biological samples. This information may prevent misdiagnosing patients as type 2 diabetes when their c-peptide test comes back positive. This will also provide improved treatments to control glucose levels. Asa K. Davis, PhD, T1D Exchange, Benaroya Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, which houses the TID Exchange Biobank added that, the data suggests important differences in the biological process of type 1 diabetes between those diagnosed as children or as adults. “These findings lend further credence to research underway on targeted therapies that could prolong insulin production, helping patients with type 1 diabetes better manage their disease and reduce complications,” he said. “For example, potential immunotherapy treatments are already being studied with this goal in mind, and our findings underscore that those diagnosed at a young age may be more likely to benefit from such new approaches.” For the study, researchers measured C-peptide levels in 919 people with type 1 diabetes ranging from 3 to 80 years from diagnosis (aged 3-88 years) at 28 of T1D Exchange’s 70 Clinic Network locations. Among the participants with 3- to 5-year disease duration, C-peptide was present in 78% of patient Continue reading >>
1 In 3 With Type 1 Diabetes Produce Insulin: Study
HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, Dec. 29, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Although it's widely accepted that people with type 1 diabetes produce no insulin, a new study suggests otherwise: Roughly one-third produce the hormone long after they are diagnosed. Residual insulin production can last for more than four decades, researchers reported recently in the journal Diabetes Care. Their findings could help avoid the misdiagnosis of type 1 diabetes as the more common type 2 diabetes and improve treatments for blood sugar control, they suggested. "Other studies have shown that some type 1 diabetes patients who have lived with the disease for many years continue to secrete insulin, and the assumption has been that these patients are exceptional," said study senior author Dr. Carla Greenbaum, director of T1D Exchange Biobank Operations Center, a repository of type 1 diabetes biological samples, in Seattle. "For the first time, we can definitively say that these patients are a true subset of the type 1 diabetes population, which has major clinical and health policy implications," she said in a journal news release. Worldwide, about 35 million people have type 1 diabetes, the researchers said. The autoimmune disease causes the destruction of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, which means patients must take insulin injections or use an insulin pump. The researchers examined type 1 diabetes samples from more than 900 people ranging in age from 5 to 88, and found that C-peptide, a byproduct of insulin production, was present in patients of all ages. *CGM-based treatment requires fingersticks for calibration, if patient is taking acetaminophen, or if symptoms/expectations do not match CGM readings, and if not performed, may result in hypoglycemia. Please see important risk and safety inf Continue reading >>
Type 1 Diabetes And Insulin
It’s necessary to take insulin when you have type 1 diabetes. Your body doesn’t produce the hormone insulin, and without that, your body can’t properly get the energy and fuel it needs from glucose. Because people with type 1 diabetes rely on insulin, it was formerly called insulin-dependent diabetes. To learn about how the hormone insulin works, we have an article that explains the role of insulin. As soon as you are (or your child is) diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, you will be immersed in the world of insulin, and it may feel overwhelming at first. There are doses to calculate, different types of insulin to consider, and the pressure of needing to keep blood glucose in a normal range to prevent short- and long-term complications. Your diabetes treatment team is there to help you. They can walk you through the basics of insulin dosing, answer any questions, and help you figure out how to balance food, exercise, and insulin. You will learn to take care of your diabetes with your diabetes team. If you are a parent of a child with type 1 diabetes, we also encourage you to visit our Patients' Guide to Managing Your Child's Type 1 Diabetes. It's often comforting to hear stories about others who are also going through the same things you are. Jay Cutler, quarterback for the Chicago Bears, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2008, and he is still getting used to regular blood sugar testing and insulin injections. To learn more about his journey with type 1 diabetes, read Jay Cutler's interview with EndocrineWeb. This article will provide basic details on insulin treatment. You can also visit our Patients' Guide to Insulin for more details. Types of Insulin With type 1 diabetes, you will need to take insulin on a daily basis, and there are several types of insulin you Continue reading >>
- Relative contribution of type 1 and type 2 diabetes loci to the genetic etiology of adult-onset, non-insulin-requiring autoimmune diabetes
- Relative effectiveness of insulin pump treatment over multiple daily injections and structured education during flexible intensive insulin treatment for type 1 diabetes: cluster randomised trial (REPOSE)
- Prevalence of and Risk Factors for Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy in Youth With Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes: SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study
Most People With Type 1 Still Producing Insulin
With new diagnostic tools, doctors can track the insulin production of people with diabetes who are long past the honeymoon period. If you have Type 1 diabetes and are out of the “honeymoon period,” you’ve probably been told that your pancreas has stopped producing insulin. But it turns out that information may be wrong. Many people with Type 1 still produce at least some insulin, even years after diagnosis. Traditionally, doctors and researchers believed that the pancreas “crashed and burned,” rapidly declining in its ability to secrete insulin as early as a year after the onset of Type 1. What new research now shows is that many people with Type 1 produce at least some level of insulin for decades after diagnosis.1,2 Your pancreas could be functioning for decades, not just one or two years after your diagnosis. In our study of nearly 200 patients who had been living with Type 1 for nearly two decades, we saw that C-peptide secretion (a sign of insulin production) decayed gradually over 20 years, and we were able to detect C-peptide in nearly two-thirds of the blood samples we analyzed. So, why did we think for so long that people with Type 1 don’t produce any insulin? And what changed? One major reason is that, until recently, we couldn’t detect the insulin being produced by people who long have had Type 1 diabetes, since they are producing C-peptide at lower levels than most current tests can measure. However, new ultra-sensitive blood tests for C-peptide are able to pick up very low levels of secretion, and they are now what we use in our laboratory for all of our Type 1 diabetes studies. Right now, the greatest impact of our ability to detect C-peptide will be on Type 1 diabetes research. Most Type 1 diabetes clinical trials have been directed at pati Continue reading >>
Insulin And Diabetes
Discovered in 1922 by Frederick Banting and Charles Best, insulin is the hormone in our body that allows glucose (sugar) to get into the cells of our body that need glucose for energy. Produced in the pancreas, insulin is considered the “most powerful” hormone in the body. Every living mammal needs insulin to survive. Humans, cats, dogs, pigs, cows, and even dolphins all need in insulin in order to maintain healthy blood sugar levels. Without enough insulin, your blood sugar can rise to dangerously high levels. People with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes do not make enough insulin, or their bodies are unable to make use of the insulin they are producing. Insulin resistance is commonly an aspect of pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes in which the body needs more and more insulin to do the job of maintaining healthy blood sugar levels that it used to do with a lesser amount of insulin. People with type 1 diabetes do not make any insulin because a part of the pancreas that is responsible for producing insulin is being continuously attacked by their immune-system, making this form of diabetes an “autoimmune disorder.” People with type 1.5 diabetes, also known as LADA, are essentially type 1 diabetics who are very gradually producing less and less insulin over time, and may also experience some insulin resistance, similar to type 2. An easy way to think of insulin is to remember that it is the “key” necessary to unlock a cell so that sugar can enter it and be used for energy instead of staying in the bloodstream where the excess damages cells. For people who need to take external or supplemental insulin (insulin your body did not produce but that was instead made by a pharmaceutical company), there are several different types and kinds of insulin. The insulin you ta Continue reading >>
- Relative effectiveness of insulin pump treatment over multiple daily injections and structured education during flexible intensive insulin treatment for type 1 diabetes: cluster randomised trial (REPOSE)
- Insulin, glucagon and somatostatin stores in the pancreas of subjects with type-2 diabetes and their lean and obese non-diabetic controls
- Relative contribution of type 1 and type 2 diabetes loci to the genetic etiology of adult-onset, non-insulin-requiring autoimmune diabetes
This Is Why Some Type 1 Diabetics Still Produce Insulin
This is why some type 1 diabetics still produce insulin Swedish researchers have launched a study to see if they can boost insulin production in people with type 1 diabetes who are still making some insulin. Some type 1 diabetics still produce a bit of insulin. (iStock) ~ In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, the hormone that helps usher sugar to cells to be used as fuel. A recent Swedish study found that almost half of people with type 1 diabetes are still producing some insulin more than a decade after being diagnosed with the disease. This challenges previous assumptions that people with type 1 diabetes lose their ability to produce any insulin over time. Researchers at Sweden's Uppsala University, led by post-doctoral researcher Daniel Espes, reached their conclusions after studying more than 100 patients with type 1 diabetes. The study appears in the June issue of Diabetes Care. The investigators found that people who still produced insulin despite their long-standing type 1 diabetes had higher levels of a protein called interleukin-35. This protein appears to play an important role in the immune system. Past research had shown that both newly diagnosed people with type 1 diabetes and those who've had the disease for some time had lower average levels of interleukin-35 compared to healthy people. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that causes the body's immune system to mistakenly attack healthy cells in the pancreas that make insulin, causing insufficient insulin production and uncontrolled blood glucose levels in the cardiovascular system leading to various health complications. According to Health24 , three-and-a-half million South Africans – about 6% of the population – suffer from diabete Continue reading >>
Diabetic Patients That Still Produce Insulin Might Be The Key To A New Therapy
A study from Uppsala University has identified higher levels of interleukin-35 in type 1 diabetics that still produce insulin years after their diagnosis. Researchers at Uppsala University have published the first study in humans that shows the potential of interleukin-35 (IL-35) as a promising new target to treat type 1 diabetes. The results, published in Diabetes Care, showed that 41% of the 113 patients tested, all living with the disease for 10 years or more, still presented residual insulin production. Until now, it was thought that the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes led to the full loss of insulin production. The researchers set out to study what made those patients different and analyzed the levels of circulating cytokines, which are signaling molecules involved, among other functions, in the regulation of the immune system. What they found was that the patients that could still produce some insulin had much higher blood levels of IL-35, as well as more IL-35-producing B- and T-cells. IL-35 has been previously studied as a candidate to treat type 1 diabetes given its known role in suppressing autoimmune responses. Studies in mice models have shown that the molecule has the potential to stop the immune attack against insulin-producing beta cells. The new study not only proves that IL-35 could have a similar effect in humans, but it shows it could be a natural process that could be enhanced to reduce or stop the progression of the disease. The researchers still not know whether the patients presented high IL-35 levels at the onset of the disease, though a previous study by the same group determined that the levels of IL-35 in type 1 diabetics, both newly diagnosed and long-term sufferers, show in average lower levels of the cytokine as compared to healthy people. The Continue reading >>
Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes can occur at any age. It is most often diagnosed in children, adolescents, or young adults. Insulin is a hormone produced in the pancreas by special cells, called beta cells. The pancreas is below and behind the stomach. Insulin is needed to move blood sugar (glucose) into cells. Inside the cells, glucose is stored and later used for energy. With type 1 diabetes, beta cells produce little or no insulin. Without enough insulin, glucose builds up in the bloodstream instead of going into the cells. This buildup of glucose in the blood is called hyperglycemia. The body is unable to use the glucose for energy. This leads to the symptoms of type 1 diabetes. The exact cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown. Most likely, it is an autoimmune disorder. This is a condition that occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys healthy body tissue. With type 1 diabetes, an infection or another trigger causes the body to mistakenly attack the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. The tendency to develop autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes, can be passed down through families. Continue reading >>
Type 2 Diabetes: What Is It?
When it comes to your body, you probably spend more time thinking about your hair than your hormones. For some people, though, a problem with a hormone called insulin causes a health condition called type 2 diabetes (pronounced: dye-uh-BEE-tees). Diabetes is a disease that affects how the body uses glucose (pronounced: GLOO-kose), a sugar that is the body's main source of fuel. Your body needs glucose to keep running. Here's how it should work: Glucose from the food gets into your bloodstream. Your pancreas makes a hormone called insulin (pronounced: IN-suh-lin). Insulin helps the glucose get into the body's cells. The pancreas is a long, flat gland in your belly that helps your body digest food. It also makes insulin. Insulin is like a key that opens the doors to the cells of the body. It lets the glucose in. Then the glucose can move out of the blood and into the cells. But if someone has diabetes, either the body can't make insulin or the insulin doesn't work in the body like it should. The glucose can't get into the cells normally, so the blood sugar level gets too high. Lots of sugar in the blood makes people sick if they don't get treatment. There are two major types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. Each type causes high blood sugar levels in a different way. In type 1 diabetes , the pancreas can't make insulin. The body can still get glucose from food, but the glucose can't get into the cells, where it's needed, and glucose stays in the blood. This makes the blood sugar level very high. With type 2 diabetes, the body still makes insulin. But a person with type 2 diabetes doesn't respond normally to the insulin the body makes. So glucose is less able to enter the cells and do its job of supplying energy. When glucose can't enter the cells in this way, doctors call Continue reading >>
Type 1 Diabetes: Almost Half Of Patients Produce Insulin
Type 1 diabetes is often described as a condition in which the body fails to produce the hormone insulin. New research, however, provides further evidence that not all insulin production is lost with the condition, and this may be down to an anti-inflammatory protein. Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden found that nearly half of patients who had been living with diabetes for more than 10 years produced some insulin. What is more, these insulin-producing patients also had higher blood levels of immune cells that produce a protein called interleukin-35 (IL-35), which is believed to suppress the immune system and reduce inflammation. Study co-author Dr. Daniel Espes, of the Department of Medical Cell Biology at Uppsala University, and colleagues recently reported their findings in the journal Diabetes Care. Type 1 diabetes is estimated to affect around 1.25 million children and adults in the United States. The condition arises when the immune system mistakingly attacks the insulin-producing cells, or beta cells, of the pancreas. It was once thought that patients with type 1 diabetes experienced a complete loss of insulin production, but increasingly, studies have indicated that some patients still possess functioning beta cells. For this latest study, Dr. Espes and colleagues set out to determine whether there are any immunological mechanisms that might explain why some patients with type 1 diabetes still produce some insulin. Many patients produced insulin The research included 113 patients with type 1 diabetes who were aged 18 and older. All patients had been living with the condition for at least 10 years. Using the ultra-sensitive ELISA test, the researchers measured the levels of C-peptide in the patients' blood, which is an indicator of insulin production. Continue reading >>
