Endlessdating

Researchers have found what appears to be a major culprit behind the loss of insulin-producing ? cells from the pancreases of people with diabetes, a critical event in the progression of the disease.

The discovery could lead to new therapies for preventing the death of ? cells or restoring those that have already been lost, Kathrin Maedler and colleagues report in the February 4th issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication. The inflammatory factor they uncovered, which they call CXCL10, might also offer a warning sign of early or impending disease, they said.

” Previously, the idea was that insulin resistance makes one diabetic, but loss of ? cells occurs in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes,” Maedler said, noting that among those who are insulin resistant, only 10-20 percent will go on to develop type 2 diabetes due to a failure of ? cells. “We’ve found an inflammatory marker for both types of diabetes. If we can protect cells from CXCL10 expression, we might prevent the decline in ? cell mass and, with it, the disease.”

Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children or young adults and stems from an inability to produce insulin. The more common type 2 diabetes generally arises later in life when the body fails to produce enough insulin or grows unresponsive to the hormone.

In type 1 diabetes, ? cells are known to be destroyed by the immune system and its production of high concentrations of inflammatory signals. While scientists had floated many ideas, exactly what causes ? cell loss in type 2 diabetes remains a matter of debate. Read the rest of this entry »

New research suggests that, if used properly, vibration plate exercise machines may help you lose weight and trim the particularly harmful belly fat between the organs.

In a study presented on Friday at the European Congress on Obesity, scientists found that overweight or obese people who regularly used the equipment in combination with a calorie restricted diet were more successful at long-term weight loss and shedding the fat around their abdominal organs than those who combined dieting with a more conventional fitness routine.

“These machines are increasingly found in gyms across the industrialized world and have gathered a devoted following in some places, but there has not been any evidence that they help people lose weight. Our study, the first to investigate the effects of vibration in obese people, indicates it’s a promising approach. It looks like these machines could be a useful addition to a weight control package,” said the study’s leader, Dirk Vissers, a physiotherapist at the Artesis University College and the University of Antwerp in Belgium.

Vissers and his colleagues studied the effects of the Power Plate in 61 overweight or obese people – mostly women – for a year. The intervention lasted six months, after which the scientists advised all the volunteers to do the best they could with a healthy diet and exercise regime on their own for another six months. Body measurements, including CT scans of abdominal fat, were taken at the beginning of the study and after three, six and 12 months. Read the rest of this entry »