Beta Cell Dysfunction

Beta cells reside in the pancreas, where they do the important job of producing insulin for the body. Beta cells produce insulin, and also secrete insulin when they are signaled to do so by an increase in glucose levels in the blood. Without adequate insulin, blood glucose levels rise too high, a defining characteristic of any type of diabetes.
In type 2 diabetes, beta cells churn out a lot of insulin early in the disease process; type 2 is characterized by both high glucose levels, and high insulin levels in the blood. The main problem is that the body's tissues are resistant to insulin, and can't use it properly. As type 2 diabetes progresses over time, however, the beta cells seem to wear out, and eventually produce less insulin. Some people with type 2 diabetes end up having to take insulin because their beta cells are not producing enough of it.
In type 1 diabetes, the beta cells do not produce enough insulin. This is generally due to the death of the beta cells. By the time someone is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, they may have lost 70-80% of their beta cells (it is thought, although more recent studies are testing this number). Beta cell loss occurs gradually over time, beginning before diagnosis, and continuing afterwards, until most beta cells are lost (Cnop et al. 2005). However, new research is also finding that some people with type 1 continue to produce insulin for many years (Davis et al. 2014; Oram et al. 2014), as well as proinsulin (a precursor to insulin) (Steenkamp et al. 2017), and that beta cell dysfunction (not just death) may also be a significant c Continue reading

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Top 10 Good and Worst Drinks for Diabetics

Diabetes is something which is spreading really fast and today we can witness hundreds and thousands of people suffering from diabetes in different parts of the world. It is spreading like an epidemic and has a lot to do with the type of lifestyle and the diet that we follow.
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You have to be extremely careful about what you eat and drink if you are a diabetes patient. In this article, we shall look into the best and the worst drinks for diabetes patients. Following is the list:
The Good and Best Drinks for Diabetes
Following is a list of the best drinks which is recommended for diabetes patients:
5. Coffee
Many studies conducted in the past have shown that drinking coffee can reduce the risk of contracting type 2 diabetes in patients. This research has been found to hold true in case of both caffeinated as well as decaffeinated coffee. It is believed that present in this drink is the compound chlorogenic acid which helps to slow down the process of glucose absorption, thereby regulating the levels of glucose in the blood.
While drinking coffee it is important to remember the following:
The recommended quantity is somewhere around two to three cups of coffee per day. However, experts also suggest that if you are a diabetes patient and stabilizing the blood glucose levels is getting challenging for you, you should cut out coffee completely from your diet.
Besides, avoid adding any types of cream, sweeteners, high-fat milk, etc. in your coffee as these can increase Continue reading

Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus: Its Symptoms, Causes, Treatment & Diet

Not many people know that diabetes insipidus and diabetes mellitus are two different terms are not synonymous to each other. Diabetes insipidus is mainly caused due to the problems in the kidney and the main hormone responsible for the same is the anti diuretic hormone or the vasopressin. In this article, we shall deep dive and know more about one particular type of diabetes insipidus which is known as nephrogenic diabetes insipidus.
So, come and join in for the article “Nephrogenic diabetes insipidus: Its Symptoms, Causes, Treatment, and Diet.”
What is Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus?
Diabetes Insipidus is a condition that is related to the inefficient functioning of the antidiuretic hormone produced by the hypothalamus. Whenever the body experiences any type of fluid loss, the antidiuretic hormone is released and allows the kidney to retain the water. However, in nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, the kidneys fail to respond appropriately to the hormone. Hence, the kidneys do not retain or absorb enough water and as a result, alarge volume of dilute urine is produced by the organ.
There are two main types of nephrogenic diabetes insipidus
Acquired nephrogenic diabetes insipidus which is caused by several factors mostly related to the lifestyle of an individual and Hereditary nephrogenic diabetes insipidus which, as the name suggests, is a condition that is carried out through various gene mutations.
Causes of Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus
The causes of the disease include:
Increased levels of calcium in the patient’s blood
Hypokalemia or extremely low levels of potassi Continue reading

Fat loss from pancreas 'can reverse' effects of type-2 diabetes

INDYPULSE
Fat loss from pancreas 'can reverse' effects of type-2 diabetes
Less than half a teaspoon of fat is all that it takes to turn someone into a type-2 diabetic according to a study that could overturn conventional wisdom on a disease affecting nearly 3 million people in Britain.
Researchers have found it is not so much the overall body fat that is important in determining the onset of type-2 diabetes but the small amount of fat deposited in the pancreas, the endocrine organ responsible for insulin production.
A clinical trial on 18 patients with type-2 diabetes has found that the loss of just one gram of fat from the pancreas can reverse the disease to the point where patients were once more are able to control levels of sugar in the bloodstream using their own insulin.
Diabetes comes in two forms. The “type-2” version affects about 90 per cent of the diabetic population and this is the disease associated with diet and obesity in adults. It occurs as a result of the failure of the body’s insulin hormone to control blood-sugar levels – by the pancreas not producing enough insulin, and the body becoming resistant to its own hormone.
If fat in the pancreas really is the key factor that triggers type-2 diabetes, it offers a potential target for reversing the disease through drugs. However, at present the only way of lowering fat levels in the pancreas is to go on a strict diet that lowers fat elsewhere in the body – a weight-loss procedure that is notoriously difficult to maintain.
Another problem is how we define “pancreatic fat”, according to Professor St Continue reading

Diet, Lifestyle, and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Women

Previous studies have examined individual dietary and lifestyle factors in relation to type 2 diabetes, but the combined effects of these factors are largely unknown.
We followed 84,941 female nurses from 1980 to 1996; these women were free of diagnosed cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer at base line. Information about their diet and lifestyle was updated periodically. A low-risk group was defined according to a combination of five variables: a body-mass index (the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) of less than 25; a diet high in cereal fiber and polyunsaturated fat and low in trans fat and glycemic load (which reflects the effect of diet on the blood glucose level); engagement in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for at least half an hour per day; no current smoking; and the consumption of an average of at least half a drink of an alcoholic beverage per day.
During 16 years of follow-up, we documented 3300 new cases of type 2 diabetes. Overweight or obesity was the single most important predictor of diabetes. Lack of exercise, a poor diet, current smoking, and abstinence from alcohol use were all associated with a significantly increased risk of diabetes, even after adjustment for the body-mass index. As compared with the rest of the cohort, women in the low-risk group (3.4 percent of the women) had a relative risk of diabetes of 0.09 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.05 to 0.17). A total of 91 percent of the cases of diabetes in this cohort (95 percent confidence interval, 83 to 95 percent) could be attributed to habits and Continue reading