Category: Health Conditions

Diabetes develops when the pancreas, which produces insulin to regulate blood sugar levels, does not function properly and insulin levels drop.  Type I diabetes results in juveniles and generally requires insulin injections and type II diabetes, known as adult onset, is generally less severe and often may be controlled with oral medication and careful diet.  In the world of vision, the control of diabetes is very important because one side effect of uncontrolled diabetes is diabetic retinopathy, in which vision may be lost entirely.

Scientists at UCLA are working to make other cells in the body act like pancreatic beta cells in a quest to find exciting new therapies for diabetes.  A study published in Developmental Cell describes how researchers may have determined the process that would allow them to convert cells into becoming those essential pancreatic beta cells.

According to study co-author Dr. Anil Bhushan, “Our work shows that beta cells and related endocrine cells can easily be converted into each other.”

Prior to this research scientists had believed that cells retain their own “identity” – and that pancreatic cells would only function as pancreatic cells; that endocrine cells would only function as endocrine cells.  Recent work however, has demonstrated that some cell types can change into other cell types – a determination that is stimulating researchers’ interest in exploring the mechanism of how this is possible.

Should researchers start to think about the role that the immune system plays in type 2 diabetes?

Scientists publishing in the journal Nature Medicine looked at why some obese people develop diabetes while others who are markedly overweight are not affected by the disease.

Researchers have linked the onset of diabetes to inflammation, which involves the immune system.  “The researchers have identified immune system antibodies in people who are obese and insulin-resistant that aren’t present in people who are obese without insulin resistance,” says the source of this post, HealthFinder.gov.

According to Dr. David Kendall, chief scientific and medical officer for the American Diabetes Association. “People with type 2 diabetes are often blamed for bringing the disease on, but it’s a combination of genetic and physiological factors exposed to a certain environment. And, this study points out what may be another important biologic factor.”

Learn more about how to prevent diabetes at our website.

Patients who have been diagnosed with isolated ocular neuropathic conditions, commonly a side effect or complication of diabetes, may no longer need MRI testing.

A new study reports that MRI exams are recommended for patients under 50 with a history of cancer, have more than one cranial nerve affected, or have a pupil-involving palsy of the third cranial nerve.  If patients are older and do not have these conditions, they don’t need such imaging, at least at the outset of treating the condition because such MRI images rarely helps medical professionals find lesions that would have made a difference in the type of treatment they received.

Published: Archives of Opthalmology