Type 1 Diabetes Risk May Come Down To Gut Bacteria Counts

Type 1 Diabetes Risk May Come Down to Gut Bacteria Counts

Read Stomach Bacteria Could be an Early Type 1 Detector.
Some scientists decided to test whether the environmental conditions at the differing labs affected the rate of non-obese diabetes in the mice, according to Dr. Aleksander Kostic, an assistant investigator at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. They raised the mice in a completely sterile, germ-free environment, and found that the rate of non-obese diabetes quickly climbed upwards. They then transferred stool from mice raised in a non-sterile environment to mice raised in a sterile environment, and noticed that the rate of diabetes for the mice who received the transplanted stool went down.
This seemed to indicate that a lack of exposure to microbes was somehow having a severely detrimental effect on the immune system and preventing protection from Type 1 diabetes to mice that were genetically prone, Dr. Kostic said in a phone interview with Insulin Nation.
Read Why People with Type 1 Have Stomach Problems.
Findings like these have given rise to the hygiene hypothesis. This theory supposes that our immune systems are genetically designed to handle a certain load of exposure to microbes. As societys hygiene has improved, it has left the immune system with not enough to do, the theory goes, and it becomes more prone to attacking the body. This could have led to a rise in autoimmune diseases like Type 1 diabetes.
With this theory in mind, Dr. Kostic and others have observed that gut bacteria becomes less diverse in people with Type 1 a year before diagnosis. The guts of people with Type 1 become dominated by several Continue reading

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$Diabetes: Stimulating bone stem cells may improve fracture repair$

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 Continue reading

Baylor's Lauren Cox has been tender and tough playing with diabetes - Women's college basketball

WACO, Texas -- Trying to please the demanding Kim Mulkey and adjusting from high school to elite college basketball at Baylor could lead to a breakdown for any freshman. But Lauren Cox's major freshman issue had nothing to do with any of that. Her misery before Baylor faced Tennessee on Dec. 4 was all because the biggest challenge of her life -- Type 1 diabetes -- threatened to keep her from playing in the game. Her blood sugar levels were dangerously high.
Cox ended up taking the floor in the Baylor win. Her blood sugar returned to the necessary level to allow her to play. Still, she admits it's been incredibly challenging -- dealing with her condition, working to succeed on the court for a top program and trying to be a freshman in college all at the same time.
"It's been pretty tough," Cox said this week, before Baylor faces Louisville in the Sweet 16 on Friday night (ESPN2/WatchESPN, 9 p.m. ET). "Not having my parents there (at Baylor) is definitely a big challenge. Just managing my levels has been pretty tough but I've had a pretty good handle on it."
Natalie Chou can't help the comparisons to Linsanity as she attempts to shatter stereotypes. From pro-style workouts with Jason Terry to navigating her first year at Baylor, this is her story.
On the court, Cox has flashed the potential that made her the top recruit in the country. She has been a key reserve for Mulkey, earning the Big 12 Sixth Man Award while being named to the All-Freshman team after averaging 8.4 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game.
That is even more impressive considering Cox has to wa Continue reading

Hybrid closed-loop insulin delivery systems for type 1 diabetes come of age

At 19 months old, Jamie Kurtzig was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. For the next 10 years, her parents would wake up every three hours during the night to prick their daughter's finger so they could check her blood glucose level. If her blood glucose was too low, they gave her food to avoid seizures or a loss of consciousness. If it was too high, they gave her an insulin injection to bring the level down to a normal range.
"It's caused a kind of PTSD for my husband and me," said Sara Kurtzig, who lives with her daughter and husband in Marin, California.
But for the past year, they've been able to sleep through most nights. That's because Jamie started using a hybrid closed-loop insulin delivery system in 2016, thanks to a clinical trial at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford and Stanford Medicine that assessed the system's use in children ages 7 to 14.
"The closed-loop system has completely changed our lives," Sara said. "It took me a month to trust it, but now I can go to bed at 11 p.m. and wake up at 6:30 a.m. almost every night."
The system is among the methods being tested by researchers at the School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in their efforts to find easier ways for younger children with type 1 diabetes to get the doses of insulin they need.
Bruce Buckingham, MD, professor of pediatric endocrinology, directs clinical trials of the closed-loop system, which modulates insulin delivery based on glucose sensor readings measured every five minutes. He called the system a "historic advance" for diabetes care.
"With this system, patients can a Continue reading

Current study confirms the Nutritarian diet is BEST for reversing type 2 diabetes

Current study confirms the Nutritarian diet is BEST for reversing type 2 diabetes
Health Concerns: Diabetes , Type 1 Diabetes , Type 2 Diabetes
For diabetics and pre-diabetics especially, new research proves what moms having been telling their children through the ages, eat your veggies, theyre good for you. A recent study published in the British Journal of Nutrition reported that higher plant protein intake is associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. In their analysis, they estimated that replacing one percent of calories from animal protein with calories from plant protein would decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes by 18 percent.1
At first glance, it may seem like the dietary effects on diabetes would be only relevant to carbohydrate-containing foods. The more low-carbohydrate, high-protein foods in your diet, the better; those foods dont directly raise blood glucose. However, that is a too simplistic view of the development of type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is not only driven by elevated glucose levels, but also by chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and alterations in circulating lipids (fats).2-5
In addition, there has been considerable amount of evidence that red and processed meats are linked to a greater risk of type 2 diabetes This recent study is not the first one to make the connection between protein source and diabetes. In fact, many studies have compared plant and animal protein intake with respect to diabetes risk. A larger study published in 2016 found an increase in type 2 diabetes risk in those with the highest animal protein intake. Continue reading