Reversing Diabetes Naturally

06/25/2020

Genetic diabetes test effective in people of Indian heritage
There are concerns that doctors could misdiagnose diabetes in India due to higher rates of type 2 diabetes in younger and slimmer people. A new study has shown that an existing genetic test could accurately diagnose diabetes in people of Indian heritage.

A test for type 1 diabetes developed in European populations may be effective in people of Indo-European ancestry.
Although people often use the word diabetes to describe one condition, there are actually two different types of diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that causes damage to the beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. A lack of insulin is the primary characteristic of type 1 diabetes.

Treatment involves regular injections with insulin.

Type 2 diabetes is the more common form of diabetes. It is not an autoimmune condition and typically involves resistance to rather than a lack of insulin.

Treatments include medications to increase insulin sensitivity and lifestyle changes, such as following a healthful diet.

Previously, experts have associated the two forms with different age groups:

Type 1 diabetes tends to occur in younger people.
Type 2 is more likely to occur in people over 45 years of age who have a high body mass index (BMI).
However, this view is shifting due to rising rates of childhood obesity and recent findings that type 1 diabetes can occur later in life.

This has led to concerns regarding misdiagnosis, particularly in Indian populations, where there is a higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes in younger and slimmer people.

Furthermore, scientists have carried out most research on type 1 diabetes in European populations, which means existing diagnostic tools may not apply.

The problem of misdiagnosis
Misdiagnosis in diabetes is a growing concern. One recent study of 583 participants from the population-based Exeter Diabetes Alliance for Research in England (DARE) in the United Kingdom found that almost 40% of adults with type 1 diabetes did not receive a correct initial diagnosis and received treatment for type 2 diabetes.

Diagnosing diabetes accurately is vital because administering the wrong treatment could have severe consequences, such as diabetic ketoacidosis.

“Diagnosing the right diabetes type is an increasingly difficult challenge for clinicians, as we now know that type 1 diabetes can occur at any age. This task is even harder in India, as more cases of type 2 diabetes occur in people with low BMI,” explains Dr. Richard Oram of the Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science at the University of Exeter Medical School in the U.K.

A collaborative study between researchers in Hyderabad in India and the University of Exeter has looked at the effectiveness of current genetic risk scores for diagnosing type 1 diabetes in Indian populations.

The authors published the study in Scientific Reports.

The researchers assessed whether the genetic risk score can effectively discriminate between type 1 and type 2 diabetes in people from Pune in the west of India, who were of Indo-European ancestry.

They analyzed 262 people with confirmed type 1 diabetes, 345 people with type 2 diabetes, and a control group of 324 people who did not have diabetes. They then compared the outcomes with those of European people from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium study.

Risk score effective in Indian people
The researchers found that the current genetic risk score is effective at diagnosing diabetes in Indian populations, even though the original data were from European people.

However, the team also identified new genetic differences between European and Indian populations, making the test more accurate for Indian people.

They found nine new genetic variants (single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) that correlate with type 1 diabetes in both groups that doctors could use to predict the onset of the disease in Indian people.

“It’s interesting to note that different SNPs are more abundant among Indian and European patients. This opens up the possibility that environmental factors might be interacting with these SNPs to cause the disease,” explains Dr.G. R Chandak, the scientist leading the study at the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India.

The results are good news for doctors using this score to diagnose people in India.

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Validation in other groups
“We look forward to using this test in diabetic patients from different parts of India, where the physical characteristics of diabetic patients differ from the standard description.”

– Dr. Chittaranjan Yajnik, KEM Hospital & Research Centre in Pune, India

However, India is a vast country with a lot of genetic diversity, so researchers must also validate this test in other ethnic groups.

Over time, the team hopes to develop a genetic test for type 1 diabetes-specific to people with Indian ancestry.

A combined approach, including both genetic risk scores and clinical features, such as auto-antibodies indicative of type 1 diabetes), will be the most effective way to diagnose the disease.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/genetic-test-for-diabetes-effective-in-people-of-indian-heritage

06/19/2020

Tea and Diabetes: Benefits, Risks, and Types to Try
Effect of tea

There are many tea varieties to choose from, some of which offer unique health benefits.

Certain teas may be particularly beneficial for people with diabetes and help promote blood sugar control, reduce inflammation, and enhance insulin sensitivity — all of which are essential for diabetes management.

This article explains the benefits of tea for people with diabetes, lists the best teas to drink for diabetes control, and explains how to enjoy tea in the healthiest and safest way.

How does tea affect diabetes control?
Consumed by over two-thirds of the global population, tea is one of the most popular beverages in the world (1Trusted Source).

There are many types of tea, including true teas made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant, which include black, green, and oolong tea, and herbal teas, such as peppermint and chamomile tea (1Trusted Source).

Both true teas and herbal teas have been associated with a variety of health benefits due to the powerful plant compounds that they contain, and research has shown that some teas have properties that are particularly beneficial for people with diabetes.

Diabetes is a group of conditions characterized by chronically high blood sugar levels resulting from either the inadequate secretion of the blood-sugar-regulating hormone insulin, reduced sensitivity to insulin, or both (2Trusted Source).

For people with diabetes, tight blood sugar regulation is critical, and choosing foods and beverages that optimize healthy blood sugar control is key.

Opting for calorie-free or very low calorie beverages like unsweetened tea over sugary beverages like soda and sweetened coffee drinks is an excellent way to optimize diabetic control.

Plus, some tea varieties contain plant compounds that fight cellular damage and reduce inflammation and blood sugar levels, making them a great choice for people with diabetes (3Trusted Source).

What’s more, drinking unsweetened tea can help keep your body hydrated. Staying properly hydrated is essential for every bodily process, including blood sugar regulation.

In fact, research shows that dehydration is associated with high blood sugar levels in people with diabetes, highlighting the importance of regular fluid intake (4Trusted Source).

SUMMARY
Certain teas contain compounds that may help optimize diabetic control. Plus, drinking tea can help you stay hydrated, which is essential for healthy blood sugar regulation.

There are many tea varieties to choose from, some of which offer unique health benefits. This article explains the benefits related to drinking tea for people with diabetes, including the best types to try.

06/05/2020

Does Eating a Very Low Fat Diet Prevent Diabetes?
While diet quality significantly affects your diabetes risk, studies show that dietary fat intake, in general, does not significantly increase this risk.

Q: Does eating a very low-fat diet prevent diabetes?

Your diabetes risk is influenced by a variety of factors, including what you eat, your body weight, and even your genes. Your food choices, in particular, may offer significant protection against the development of type 2 diabetes.

It’s well known that diets high in overall calories promote weight gain, insulin resistance, and blood sugar dysregulation, which can increase diabetes risk (1Trusted Source).

Because fat is the most calorie-dense macronutrient, it makes sense that following a lower-fat diet may help reduce this risk. However, studies show that your overall diet quality has a much greater influence on diabetes prevention than how much of each macronutrient you eat.

For example, research shows that dietary patterns high in refined grains processed meats, and added sugar significantly increase diabetes risk. Meanwhile, diets rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy fats like olive oil protect against diabetes development (2Trusted Source).

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While it’s clear that diet quality significantly affects diabetes risk, studies show that dietary fat intake, in general, does not significantly increase this risk.

A 2019 study in 2,139 people found that neither animal nor plant-based dietary fat intake was significantly associated with diabetes development (3Trusted Source).

There’s also no solid evidence that diets higher in cholesterol from foods like eggs and full-fat dairy significantly increase diabetes risk (3Trusted Source).

What’s more, studies show that both low carb, high-fat diets and low fat, high protein diets are beneficial for blood sugar control, adding to the confusion (4Trusted Source).

Unfortunately, dietary recommendations tend to focus on single macronutrients, such as fats or carbs, rather than the overall quality of your diet.

Instead of following a very low fat or very low carb diet, try concentrating on improving your diet quality in general. The best way to prevent diabetes is to consume a nutrient-rich diet that’s high in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fiber, protein, and healthy fat sources.

You may wonder whether eating a low fat diet may help prevent diabetes. Our nutrition expert looks at the research.

05/19/2020

Diabetes appears in patients with rare coronavirus-linked Kawasaki disease

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Children being treated for suspected coronavirus-linked Kawasaki disease are also beginning to exhibit high blood-sugar levels “consistent with diabetes,” a Brooklyn pediatric doctor said.

Two of the four patients treated at SUNY Downstate hospital for Kawasaki or pediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome also had diabetes, said Dr. Stephen Wadowksi, a pulmonologist who is chairman of the pediatric department.

“It’s new. It’s unexpected,” Wadowski told The Post. “Their blood sugar is very high.”

He said while the few cases are anecdotal, the sudden flare-up of diabetes in adolescents with suspected COVID-tied inflammatory syndrome must be taken seriously.

“Diabetes is something we’re going to be looking at. It’s something worth studying. Whether it’s significant or not depends on how much more it occurs,” Wadowski said.

He said during the last SARS outbreak there was discussion on whether that virus accelerated or triggered diabetes.

Youngsters haven’t exhibited illnesses that COVID has inflicted on adults.

But Wadowski said an overreaction by the children’s immune systems in fighting the coronavirus may be causing Kawasaki — inflammation of the blood vessels — as well as other maladies.

Kawasaki disease is named after the Japanese pediatrician Tomisaku Kawasaki, who in 1967 reported 50 cases of infants with persistent fever, accompanied by rash, lymphadenopathy [disease of lymph nodes], inflammation of the blood vessels, redness and cracking of the lips, “strawberry tongue,” and peeling of the skin.

Children being treated for suspected coronavirus-linked Kawasaki disease are also beginning to exhibit high blood-sugar levels “consistent with diabetes,” a Brooklyn pediatric doctor said. Two of t…

05/06/2020

Coronavirus, diabetes, obesity and other underlying conditions: Which patients are most at risk?
According to a CDC report, nearly 90% of patients hospitalized with coronavirus (COVID-19) had one or more underlying health conditions.


Though people of all ages are affected by coronavirus, many of those who develop severe complications after contracting it have preexisting medical conditions. According to a CDC report, nearly 90% of adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the US had one or more underlying diseases.

According to a CDC report, nearly 90% of patients hospitalized with coronavirus (COVID-19) had one or more underlying health conditions.

05/05/2020

Scientists Are Trying to Reverse Diabetes With Gene Editing
A new technique could eliminate the need for insulin shots
Reengineering Life is a series from One Zero about the astonishing ways genetic technology is changing humanity and the world around us.
In the 1990s, a handful of people with Type 1 diabetes underwent an experimental therapy in hopes of curing their disease. They received transplants of tissue containing insulin-producing cells from people who had recently died. The hope was that the cells in the donor tissue would make up for the recipients’ faulty ones.
These insulin-producing cells, known as beta cells, are damaged or depleted in the more than 34 million people in the United States — about 10% of the population — who have diabetes. Beta cells normally produce and release insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar. But without these cells, people with diabetes need to take insulin regularly.
The transplants worked — temporarily, at least. Some patients no longer needed regular injections of insulin, but the effects wore off after a few months or years. The recipients also needed to take harsh immunosuppressant drugs so their bodies wouldn’t reject the transplanted tissue.
The therapy is far from ideal, but scientists haven’t given up on the idea of using beta cells to treat diabetes. Now, they think CRISPR could improve upon the idea.
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, where some of the first of these transplants occurred, recently used CRISPR to correct stem cells from diabetic patients and turn them into fully functioning beta cells. After transferring the edited cells into mice with diabetes, the animals’ blood sugar normalized. The results were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine on April 22.
Though the work was done using cells from patients with a rare form of the disease, the authors think the approach could eventually be used to treat Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
“We were able to reverse the diabetes in the mice in about a week,” Jeffrey Millman, an assistant professor of medicine and biomedical engineering, tells One Zero. Several years ago, Millman and his colleagues discovered how to convert human stem cells into pancreatic beta cells that make insulin.
For the new study, Millman and his colleagues worked with Dr. Fumihiko Urano, an endocrinologist at Washington University Medical Center and expert on a rare form of diabetes called Wolfram syndrome, which causes childhood diabetes and deafness. Urano had taken skin cells from a patient with the condition and used them to generate a type of stem cell that can be turned into any cell type in the body, called induced pluripotent stem cells. Using CRISPR in those stem cells, they corrected a mutation in the gene that causes the disease. They then transformed the corrected stem cells into pancreatic beta cells and injected them into mice. After a week, the animals’ blood sugar levels had become normal and remained that way for the entire six months they were monitored.
The results are promising, but there are a number of questions that remain about how to apply the approach in people. For one, scientists don’t yet know the best location in the body to infuse the corrected beta cells. In some previous clinical trials using beta cells from donors, doctors have tried infusing cells underneath the skin, but the technique didn’t work that well.
Another issue is that scientists need to generate a lot of cells in order to treat a patient. Millman says it would probably take around the order of a billion cells. That could be a long process, taking several months or up to a year.
Then there’s the matter of how to use this approach to treat Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes as opposed to the rare type of diabetes Millman and his team studied. It would hinge on patients getting genetic testing so doctors could identify the genetic mutations responsible for their diabetes. “There have been dozens of mutations that have been identified as being associated with increased risk of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and many of these are genes that are expressed in the beta cell,” Millman says. In the future, he says CRISPR could be used to correct certain mutations in beta cells from those patients.
But unlike Wolfram syndrome, which results from a single genetic mutation, the vast majority of diabetes cases arise from a mix of genetic and environmental factors. So, many more edits would be needed in order to correct beta cells from these patients.
If the treatment works, it could be a long-term fix for diabetes, and because the approach uses a patient’s own cells, it would eliminate the need for transplant recipients to take immunosuppressant drugs. It could also stave off the potentially serious health complications that arise from diabetes, like nerve and kidney damage, obesity, heart attack, and stroke. But because the process of generating cells would need to be tailored to individual patients — a very time-consuming effort — it would be difficult to make these cells for every person with diabetes.
It’s also a complicated treatment that combines two experimental technologies. The first U.S. clinical trial that uses induced pluripotent stem cells just got underway in December, and studies using CRISPR in people are still in their early stages.
But despite the technical hurdles, the idea of editing stem cells with CRISPR has already attracted interest from biotech companies. CRISPR Therapeutics, for one, has partnered with ViaCyte to develop a gene-edited stem cell therapy for diabetes. But in contrast to the work being done at Washington University, their method uses stem cells derived from a human cell line, which could be grown indefinitely, rather than from the patients intended to receive the therapy. This method wouldn’t require correcting the different genetic mutations that cause diabetes in individuals and therefore could be scaled up a lot faster.

A new technique could eliminate the need for insulin shots

05/05/2020

SGLT2 Inhibitors May Prevent Diabetic Kidney Disease

Use of the sodium-glucose co transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor diabetes drug class "may lower the risk of serious renal events in routine clinical practice," new data from a Scandinavian registry indicate.

The patients, for the most part, had no kidney disease at baseline.

These real-world participants with type 2 diabetes who were newly prescribed an SGLT2 inhibitor rather than a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor were 58% less likely to have a serious renal event within the next 1.7 years.

"Complementing data from clinical trials, this study provides further support for the use of SGLT2 inhibitors in a broad range of patients with type 2 diabetes," Björn Pasternak, MD, PhD, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues summarize in their article published online April 29 in BMJ.

"Overall, the findings by Pasternak and colleagues add to the impressive track record for SGLT2 inhibitors," writes Steven M. Smith, PhD, Department of Pharmacotherapy and Translational Research and Center for Integrative Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease, University of Florida, in an accompanying editorial.

And he stressed, "Although SGLT2 inhibitors appeared particularly beneficial in people with cardiovascular disease or chronic kidney disease, it is perhaps more informative that these drugs were associated with a lower risk of development and progression of diabetic kidney disease in patients without these overt comorbidities, who have largely been excluded from clinical trials."

Most Patients Had No CKD, Low Rate of CVD in Real-World Study
Type 2 diabetes is a leading cause of kidney failure, but in several trials, SGLT2 inhibitors — which reduce blood pressure, weight, and albuminuria — had a beneficial effect on renal outcomes, the authors write.

And in the first dedicated renal trial of one of these agents, CREDENCE, patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease had better outcomes with canagliflozin than with placebo; the agent was subsequently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in September 2019 for additional indications of reducing the risk of end-stage kidney disease and worsening of kidney function, among other new indications. Other SGLT2 inhibitors are being studied in renal outcomes trials, including dapagliflozin in patients with CKD in DAPA-CKD, which was stopped early at the end of March because of overwhelming efficacy of the drug.

But these key trials "left important questions unanswered for clinicians and patients," notes Smith.

"All were placebo controlled and had highly selected participants, making the results hard to translate to real-world use."

To investigate this, Pasternak and colleagues identified 38,273 new users of SGLT2 inhibitors and 107,854 new users of DPP-4 inhibitors in national registry data from 2013 to 2018 in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

They matched 29,887 new users of SGLT2 inhibitors with 29,887 new users of DPP-4 inhibitors.

In the SGLT2-inhibitor group, roughly two thirds of patients received dapagliflozin (66.1%), a third received empagliflozin (32.6%), and few received canagliflozin (1.3%), for a mean of 1.4 years.

Patients with type 2 diabetes in real-world practice who received an SGLT2 inhibitor rather than a DPP-4 inhibitor were less likely to develop serious renal events, consistent with clinical trial findings.

04/28/2020

Summary
Diabetes is one of the most important comorbidities linked to the severity of all three known human pathogenic coronavirus infections, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Patients with diabetes have an increased risk of severe complications including Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome and multi-organ failure. Depending on the global region, 20–50% of patients in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had diabetes. Given the importance of the link between COVID-19 and diabetes, we have formed an international panel of experts in the field of diabetes and endocrinology to provide some guidance and practical recommendations for the management of diabetes during the pandemic. We aim to briefly provide insight into potential mechanistic links between the novel coronavirus infection and diabetes, present practical management recommendations, and elaborate on the differential needs of several patient groups.

Diabetes is one of the most important comorbidities linked to the severity of all three known human pathogenic coronavirus infections, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Patients with diabetes have an increased risk of severe complications including Adult Respiratory Distress...

04/28/2020

Personalized nutrition smart patch to reduce diabetes risk
In development: World-first personalized nutrition wearable


A wearable smart patch will deliver precision data to help people personalize their diets and reduce their risk of developing lifestyle-related chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes.

The world-first personalized nutrition wearable being developed by Australian start-up Nutromics painlessly measures key dietary biomarkers and sends the information to an app, enabling users to precisely track how their bodies respond to different foods.

The pioneering technology will be designed and manufactured in Australia.

A collaborative team led by Nutromics, RMIT University, Griffith University, and manufacturer Romar Engineering, with support from the Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (IMCRC), is now researching and developing the required manufacturing capabilities to pilot manufacture the device.

Pre-diabetes is estimated to affect more than 350 million people globally; in the US and China alone, 1 in 2 adults are pre-diabetic or diabetic.

Nutromics co-CEO Peter Vranes said the smart patch leveraged emerging technologies to empower people to take greater control of their health.

"We've brought together a multi-disciplinary team of partners who are leaders in their fields to deliver Australian-made health technology that's personalised and powerful," Vranes said.

"Research has shown that what we eat affects us all differently; two people might have the same meal but their post-meal response can vary wildly.

"People want to make healthy food choices but with so much conflicting nutrition advice, many of us are confused about what that looks like.

"Being able to easily monitor key dietary biomarkers will give you the knowledge to personalize your diet to suit your own body, to get healthy and stay healthy."

Diabetes is one of the largest chronic health challenges globally. Without taking any action, up to 70% of people with pre-diabetes can go on to develop Type 2 diabetes within the next four years, but with early interventions and lifestyle changes, the condition is largely preventable.

Integrated smart patch

Research Co-Director of RMIT's Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group, Professor Sharath Sriram, said the smart patch combined a complex sensing platform and stretchable electronics for improved conformity to skin.

The fabrication of sample collection will be led by Griffith University and Romar Engineering, with sensor integration and stretchable electronics fabrication undertaken at RMIT's cutting-edge Micro Nano Research Facility.

Sriram said RMIT researchers would integrate the technologies in a prototype smart patch that could be cost-efficiently manufactured via roll-to-roll (R2R) printing and was designed with the end-user at front of mind.

"This smart patch is a significant evolution in wearable health monitoring technology," he said.

"Current wearable technologies can track your heart rate and steps, but they can't monitor your health at a molecular level.

"This new technology goes deeper, targeting the precise biomarkers that drive lifestyle-related diseases like Type 2 diabetes."

Additive manufacturing challenge

The IMCRC funding is enabling a $6.9 million total project investment (cash and in-kind) into addressing the challenge of additive manufacturing and large-scale production of the smart patches.

David Chuter, CEO and Managing Director at the IMCRC, said the project would build Australia's capability in medical technologies manufacturing and improve the competitiveness, productivity and sustainability of the advanced manufacturing sector.

"The manufacturing challenges addressed by this project will not only help deliver a low-cost, high-tech smart patch, but will also create technologies that are transferable to other Australian companies in the consumer and medical tech space," Chuter said.

Professor Nam-Trung Nguyen, who is Director of the Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre at Griffith University, said the project was underpinned by the centre's past and ongoing fundamental research in microfluidics and wearable, implantable microsystems.

"It is one of the research pillars at the Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre towards the commercialisation and translation of our discoveries for the benefit of end users,'' he said.

"The project will benefit significantly from the recent addition of a femto second laser machining system funded by the ARC."

Alan Lipman, CEO of Romar Engineering, an established manufacturer of medical devices, said collaboration was the way forward for Australian manufacturing.

"Working with entrepreneurs, academics and researchers to develop new medical technologies is essential to maintain Australia's international competitiveness and to build a strong domestic manufacturing skills base."

The device fabrication and manufacturing expertise will be rounded out with innovative healthcare business models developed at RMIT's Health Transformation Lab with Professor Vishaal Kishore and Matiu Bush, and with user-centred healthcare design led RMIT's Wearable Sensing Network Co-Chair Dr Leah Heiss.

The device could be adapted in future for other types of molecular-level health monitoring, including stress management, sleep health, sports performance and early stage viral detection.

Pioneering wearable technology to painlessly measure key dietary biomarkers and send info to an app, enabling users to precisely track their response to different foods.