[acb-diabetics] old timer ty1'a may be caking pancreatic cells

[Patricia LaFrance-Wolf]

Joslin scientists nail down proof that some people with type 1 diabetes of
extreme duration retain active insulin-producing cells. 

 

Joslin 50-Year Medalists Give Clues to Cures

 

The Ultimate Diabetes Survivors

 

Joslin Diabetes Center

Sep 14, 2010 

 

In 

type 1 

diabetes

, the body relentlessly attacks and destroys its own 

insulin

-producing pancreatic beta cells. But a study by Joslin Diabetes Center
scientists now has firmly established that some of these cells endure for
many decades

in a small group of people with the disease-offering clues to potential
treatments for preserving and even restoring the crucial cell population.

 

Joslin has been awarding 50-Year Medals to people with insulin-dependent
diabetes since 1972. The finding comes from the 

Joslin 50-Year Medalist Study

, which examines this select cohort to discover protective factors for their
long-term survival.

 

Published online by Diabetes, the research analyzed pancreatic function in
411 Medalists and examined nine pancreases from Medalist organ donors.

 

Blood samples showed that many in this group exhibit C-peptide molecules (a
marker of insulin production), blood glucose levels that rise less after a
meal

than would be expected in the absence of insulin, and signs of autoimmune
attack.

 

Moreover, all of the donated pancreases displayed active insulin-producing
beta cells, with some of the cells scattered individually and others clumped

with different kinds of hormone-producing cells in the normal pancreatic
structures called islets. Most strikingly, some of the beta cells showed
signs

of cell proliferation, cell death and autoimmune attack.

 

"We've clearly demonstrated that functional beta cells are still in the
pancreas," says Hillary Keenan, Ph.D., Joslin research associate and first
author

on the paper.

 

"The evidence that these insulin-producing cells are both growing and dying
is very important from a treatment point of view," says George L. King,
M.D.,

senior author on the paper and head of the Dianne Nunnally Hoppes Laboratory
for Diabetes Complications. "If we could increase the rate of growth and
decrease

the rate of death, we potentially could build up more insulin-producing
cells and lead to a treatment or a cure."

 

Another major component to the Medalist study is the pursuit of factors that
protect against 

diabetic

 complications. The Medalists provide an extraordinary opportunity for this
research due to the high proportion who are free from complications. This
search

for protective rather than risk factors is part of a paradigm shift in
Joslin's diabetes complications studies, says Dr. King, who also is Joslin's
chief

scientific officer and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

 

One impetus for the study of pancreatic insulin production in the Medalist
cohort came in 2004 from an insight by Medalist Elizabeth Saalfeld, a
Virginia

resident who then had lived with diabetes for almost 60 years. Mrs. Saalfeld
noted that at times her insulin requirements were so low that she believed

her body was still making the hormone. She mentioned her observation to Dr.
King, and follow-up lab analyses suggested that she was right.

 

Other contributors to the Diabetes paper include Jennifer K. Sun, Jared
Levine, Alessandro Doria, Lloyd P. Aiello and Susan Bonner-Weir from Joslin
and

George Eisenbarth of the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes in
Denver. Funding was provided by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
(JDRF),

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disorders, Beatson
Foundation, Brehm Foundation, and Eli Lilly. Pancreas donation was supported

by the Network for Pancreatic Organ Donors, which is sponsored by the JDRF.

 

* * *

 

Source: 

Joslin Diabetes Center

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