Results from a new study indicate that decreasing levels of a certain protein in the blood could help prevent the onset of type 1 diabetes in children.

In type 1 diabetes, the body’s immune system inexplicably begins targeting and destroying insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.  Insulin is necessary to absorb glucose in the blood and carry out a number of bodily functions important for survival.

Georgia Health Sciences University researchers are examining blood levels of a protein called interleukin-1 receptor antagonist, or IL-1ra, in children who have been identified as high-risk candidates for type 1 diabetes.  They are also looking at mice that are missing the protein to see if the deficiency lowers the rate in which the immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells.

They hope to use IL-1ra levels to identify children who are at risk of developing the disease and then use IL-inhibitors to prevent the onset of it, according to Dr. Sharad Purohit, biochemist in the GHSU Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine.

IL-inhibitors are already sued to treat rheumatoid arthritis, where inflammation destroys joints.  Researchers believe the inhibitor might also be able to halt the destruction of insulin-producing cells.

Rather than improving conditions for those living with type 1 diabetes, the researchers are more interested in preventing the disease entirely.

Type 1 diabetes usually presents by puberty, and by the time the first symptoms occur, such as increased appetite and dramatic weight loss, as many as 90 percent of the cells may be destroyed.  This leads to a lifetime of insulin dependency and other complications such as cardiovascular damage and vision loss.

According to new research, scientists are finally beginning to understand the link between high-fat diets and type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is characterized by obesity, insulin resistance and overly active immune systems that result in high levels of inflammatory chemicals in the body.

For years, it was uncertain how these three characteristics were related but a new study has begun to connect the symptoms together.

University of North Carolina researchers say that saturated fatty acids, which are typically found in processed meats, baked goods and butter, can activate immune cells to produce an inflammatory protein called interleukin-1beta.

The inflammatory protein then acts on the tissues and organs in the body to turn off their response to insulin, making them insulin resistant, according to senior study co-author Jenny Y. Ting, PhD, William Kenan Rand Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

“As a result, activation of this pathway by fatty acid can lead to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes symptoms,” Ting said.

Unsaturated fatty acids, such as those in nuts and vegetable oil, do not produce the same effect.

The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association Mid-Atlantic Affiliate.

The study was published in Nature Immunology.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, disease that used to be non-existent in young people is now affecting thousands of them – and the numbers keep growing, the Washington Post reported.

New estimates from the CDC show that about 3,700 Americans under the age of 20 receive a diagnosis annually of what used to be called “adult-onset” diabetes. The number is relatively small, which technically makes it a rare disease among children, but scientists are more concerned about the larger implications of this growing “trend”.

“In a little more than 10 years, the numbers went from nothing to something,” said Larry Deeb, a pediatric endocrinologist and past president of the medicine and science division of the American Diabetes Association. “And that’s something to worry about.”

Diabetes can cause a number of health problems, including heart disease, kidney failure, limb amputations and blindness. It costs the U.S. health-care system $174 billion a year, according to the National Institutes of Health.

These are all frightening statistics for an older population, but it’s even more worrisome among younger people suffering from diabetes.  Among the chief concerns: does a child getting a diabetes diagnosis in their teens put them at risk of heart attacks in their 20s?  Will they need kidney dialysis in their 30s?

More than 25 million Americans have diabetes – of which, more than 90 percent have type 2, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.  An additional 79 million have a condition called pre-diabetes, in which blood sugar levels are high but not as high as in diabetes.

A national study of 2,000 eighth-grade students from communities at high risk for diabetes found that more than half of the children were overweight or obese.  While only 1 percent had diabetes, almost a third of them had pre-diabetes, according to Lori Laffel, chief of the Pediatric, Adolescent and Young Adult Section of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and a principal investigator on the study.

The numbers have progressed to the point where pediatricians, at least, have begun to look for it.  When at-risk children are caught early enough, it is possible to delay, or even stop, the onset of type 2 diabetes through lifestyle changes.

Children who have dark, velvety rash around their necks, a family history of diabetes, and who weigh above the 85th percentile for age and sex should be screened with blood and urine tests for diabetes, doctors recommend.

Click here to read more from the Washington Post.

According to experts, a simple blood test may be able to detect diabetes up to 10 years before the first symptoms of the disease occur, the BBC News reported.

Harvard researchers discovered that by examining the levels of five amino acids in the blood, they could correctly identify people who would go on to develop type 2 diabetes.

Among the 2,422 volunteers tested, 201 later developed the disease.  Dr. Robert Gerszten and his colleagues found that those with the highest levels of amino acids in their blood were five times as likely to develop diabetes within the 12 years following the study.

The researchers hope that a test like this will be implemented to screen for diabetes early on.  Early detection is crucial in diabetes because it can help prevent related complications like blindness, heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and amputation.

Risk factors for type 2 diabetes include being overweight, leading a sedentary lifestyle and eating an unhealthy diet.  Meanwhile, maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle can actually prevent, or at least delay, the onset of the disease.

Before this blood test, doctors could do little more than keep an eye on a patient’s weight and blood sugar to determine his or her risk for diabetes.

However, researchers say that more studies are needed before the test can be recommended for general use.

The study was published in Nature Medicine.

Click here to read more from the BBC News.

From multiple times a day to just a few times a week: Results from a preliminary study indicate that a new insulin drug only requires people with diabetes to inject themselves three times a week and has no major side effects, HealthDay News reported.

This means that people who suffer from type 2 diabetes may be able to escape the regimens that can require them to inject themselves with insulin up to four times a day.  People with type 2 diabetes inject themselves with insulin to control their blood sugar, but it does come with side effects, such as weight gain or attacks of high or low blood sugar.

“The presumption here is if you use a medication less frequently, then people are more likely to take it and remember it, especially as we multitask and try to do so many things every day,” said Dr. Yogish C. Kudva, a diabetes specialist and consultant at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Over 200 adults with diabetes, who had not yet started taking insulin, were randomly assigned to take an existing form of insulin daily or to take the new drug, degludec, either in a daily dose or three-times-a-week doses.

After 16 weeks, researchers found that people taking the degludec three times a week were faring just as well as the other two groups.

Another phase of research is needed to confirm the results and researchers believe the drug will likely be more costly than insulin if it is released on the market.

The study was published in The Lancet.

Click here to read more from HealthDay News.

The statistics for type 2 diabetes are staggering. There are about 20 million Americans with type 2 diabetes, a high sugar condition caused by poor nutrition, being obese, and a lack of exercise—factors that can all mostly be prevented.

About two-thirds of the people with type 2 diabetes have been diagnosed, which leaves about 6 million people walking around with undiagnosed diabetes. That’s a huge number of people who have a very serious disease and don’t know it. And that makes type 2 diabetes, like hypertension, another silent killer.

Unlike type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes is not a failure of the pancreas, but an inability to produce adequate amounts of insulin for a body that is out of control. On top of that, the insulin that is being produced is not acting the way it should, a situation called insulin resistance that occurs when the insulin can no longer stimulate the cells to process the sugar in the blood. This causes the sugar to build up in the blood, ultimately doing damage to the heart, eyes, and kidneys, and creating small-vessel disease.

Type 2 diabetes is now an epidemic, and if not corrected in this generation, it will probably be responsible for most of the strokes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease that we will encounter in our sixties and seventies. Type 2 diabetes is especially common among African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and certain Asian populations.

Most people develop type 2 diabetes because they are overweight. Basically the human body does two things: it takes in calories, and it burns calories. When you consistently bring in more calories than you burn off, all those extra calories turn into fat. That fat first gets stored in the abdomen and the intestines, and then it begins to infiltrate the muscle mass of our body. And what you end up with looks very much like a marbleized piece of sirloin that you see at the butcher shop. That marbleization is one of the hallmarks of people with type 2 diabetes.

If you keep piling on the extra calories, the pancreas, whose function begins to slow down anyway with age, is no longer able to meet the demand for large quantities of insulin needed to metabolize all that sugar in the blood.

If you were to lose weight, a significant amount of weight, I mean, your type 2 diabetes could disappear almost overnight. Yes, it’s that simple. I, myself, was a diabetic. I had very elevated sugars. I was overweight, excessively stressed, and exercise-phobic. I had a very clear, black-and-white case of type 2 diabetes. So I lost 50 pounds; I now exercise three times a week, and I’ve maintained that weight loss.

Today, I am no longer diabetic. If, like me, you have not had type 2 diabetes for very long, and if you can overcome it by simple weight loss, you will end up with no permanent damage to your organs.

If you have any choice in the matter, diabetes is a road you don’t want to go down. Just to give you an idea, here are a few numbers:

–Heart disease from diabetes accounts for 65 percent of deaths in diabetics.

–The risk of stroke is two to four times higher in diabetic patients than in nondiabetics.

–Seventy-three percent of adults with diabetes have hypertension.

–Diabetic retinopathy, which is damage to the vessels of the retina, creates about 24,000 cases of blindness in America every year.

–Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure.

–One-third of people with diabetes have gum disease.

–About 10 percent of pregnant women who are diabetic may experience a spontaneous abortion or have children with major birth defects, including spina bifida.

–About 82,000 people lost a foot or a leg last year because of diabetes.

The list of damage diabetes does to the body is virtually endless. If you are a diabetic, you must learn to prevent complications and stay ahead of the game. Being a diabetic is a full-time job, and there are several measures you will have to take to ensure you keep your health on track.

You will constantly have to monitor your cardiovascular risks by monitoring your blood pressure and keeping it under control.

You will have to watch your cholesterol levels.

You will have to visit your ophthalmologist regularly to ensure you don’t development retinopathy.

You will need very comprehensive dental and foot care.

But, most important, you will have to monitor and control your sugar levels. Several times a day you must take a glucose reading either by using Accu-Chek or doing a finger prick. You will look at your morning sugar and at your sugar two hours after you eat. For the most part you want your morning sugar to be less than 100 milligrams per deciliter, and you want your postdinner values, usually two hours after you eat, to be 120 and 130 milligrams per deciliter.

If your sugar is high, you will need either to inject yourself with insulin or to take an oral hypoglycemic. This kind of supply-and-demand treatment model may soon give way to more convenient methods, made possible by new research into diabetes. Devices are now being developed in which a sensor that continuously monitors your sugar levels triggers a tiny pump when your blood sugar is elevated to release small doses of insulin.

Other new research is focusing on the possibility of transplanting the pancreatic cells, called isolet cells, into those who need them, in the hope of restimulating insulin production inside their body and minimizing the amount of insulin that needs to be injected. The hope is that this research will one day lead to a cure, whereby insulin will once again be naturally produced in the body. But as of right now, diabetes is not cured; it is treated.

Diabetes can be managed. Ultimately, if you’re talking about juvenile diabetes and you start very early in the game by getting diagnosed and getting effective treatment, you can probably expect a normal life expectancy, but it’s a very dedicated type of life.

If you are now in your forties and you develop type 2 diabetes, and you continue for a decade or more without any checks and balances, it’s very unlikely that you’ll make it into your late seventies or eighties. There’s just not enough time in the pot. In other words, if you are 40 years old, 50 or more pounds overweight, with high blood sugar levels and high cholesterol, and you don’t exercise and you don’t watch what you eat, you will without doubt see the effects 10 to 15 years from now.

By the time you’re in your sixties, you will most likely have hypertension, stroke, and cardiovascular disease. Don’t go there.

Sweet Questions

“I’m a fifty-five-year-old woman with two married daughters. We all have a sweet tooth in our family, and I’m worried that we might all become diabetic. Can people who eat a lot of sweets become diabetic?”

No. If you exercise and for the most part follow a balanced diet, you can like sweets and not become diabetic.

“Can people with diabetes eat sweets?”

If it’s part of a healthy lifestyle involving a good diet and exercise, a diabetic can eat sweets.

“Can you catch diabetes from someone else?”

No, though some people think they can. Diabetes is probably largely a matter of genetics for Type 1 and lifestyle factors for Type 2.

“Are people with diabetes more likely to get colds or other illnesses?”

No. Your immune system is not compromised when you have diabetes. However, people with diabetes should get regular flu shots because any infection can interfere with blood-sugar management.