Effectiveness of insulin therapy relies heavily on brain
January 27, 2006
UW researchers have concluded that with a new therapy, diabetes patients can avoid taking high volumes of insulin.
Michael Schwartz, who researches obesity and weight gain at the UW, found the brain plays a key role in the ability of insulin to lower blood-sugar levels in individuals with diabetes.
The new study, performed on diabetic lab rats, found that increased brain responsiveness to insulin made therapy more effective. Previously, the brain was not thought to affect the body's response to insulin.
The researchers deposited a chemical to delay the release of an insulin-stimulating enzyme into the rats' brains before injecting the rats with insulin.
According to researchers, insulin therapy that increases brain responsiveness can lower blood sugar, thereby decreasing the amounts of insulin needed to control blood sugar levels.
"In addition to what we usually think of insulin, insulin may be working in the brain indirectly," said Jerry Palmer, director of the Diabetes Care Clinic at the UW.
The control of blood sugar helps prevent macrovascular disease and other serious damage to tissue, and is "further reason to control blood sugar levels exceedingly carefully," Palmer said.
Better-controlled blood sugar levels can also allow patients to take smaller amounts of insulin, which in large doses has been shown to cause weight gain.
These studies may prove extremely helpful to humans living with diabetes.
According to the American Diabetes Association, the disease contributed to the deaths of more than 224,000 people in 2002.
Type I diabetes is autoimmune -- an affliction in which the body attacks itself -- whereas type II diabetes is not. In other words, people living with Type I diabetes do not produce insulin, and with Type II diabetes there is a decreased insulin release. About three to five people of 1,000 live with Type I diabetes, and Type II is estimated to affect five to six percent of the population. This includes both the elderly and the young.
Palmer said it is clear that diabetes research has come a long way in recent years. If a patient receives proper treatment and care, diabetes can be regulated.
"I think there have been a lot of discoveries from very basic research and even on the public health level," he said.
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