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Looking for the Cause of Diabetes
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By Kalia Doner
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Diabetes Focus Fall 2009
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Did you hear that type 1 and type 2 may be the result of nerves gone wacky? Seems that researchers noticed pain nerves around distressed insulin-producing beta cells in diabetic mice were dysfunctional. So they bypassed the dysfunction, and the diabetes disappeared. Now they’re trying to determine if type 1 may arise when the malfunctioning neurons make the beta cells unhappy (that’s the word the scientist used, really!) and that triggers an autoimmune attack, disrupting insulin production. Other times, they conjecture, nerve glitches may cause problems that lead to insulin resistance and trouble keeping glucose levels steady, resulting in type 2. The next step is to determine if all this applies to humans.
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