
Diabetes: Stimulating bone stem cells may improve fracture repair
Diabetes: Stimulating bone stem cells may improve fracture repair
Researchers have discovered a protein that stimulates bone stem cells in mice with diabetes so that the animals heal better after a fracture. They suggest that this could lead to a new treatment to improve bone repair in people with diabetes.
Bones of normal mice (top) form larger calluses during healing, which lead to stronger repair. However, bones of diabetic mice (bottom) have smaller calluses, which lead to more brittle healed bones.
The team, from Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, CA, reports the findings in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Michael T. Longaker, a professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery and one of the study's senior authors, sums up the work:
"We've uncovered the reason why some patients with diabetes don't heal well from fractures, and we've come up with a solution that can be locally applied during surgery to repair the break."
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the body's ability to produce or respond to insulin - a hormone that regulates blood sugar - is impaired.
Raised blood sugar (hyperglycemia) is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes, and over time it can cause serious damage in many parts of the body, including the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys, and nerves.
Today, there are more than 420 million people with diabetes worldwide - nearly four times as many as there were in 1980 (108 million).
Problematic bone healing is one of the many health complications that people with diabetes experience; following a break
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