Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have uncovered a new mechanism of lifespan extension that links caloric restriction with immune system regulation.
Scientists continue to find evidence linking Type 2 diabetes with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia and the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. However, little is understood about the mechanism by which the two are connected.Now, researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, have demonstrated that impaired insulin signaling in the brain negatively affects cognition, mood and metabolism, all components of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Joslin researchers detail how SGLT-2 inhibitors induce a fasting state in the body without requiring the patient to sharply cut back on food intake. This triggers a host of beneficial metabolic effects.
BOSTON – (February 11, 2019) – It’s well-known that exercise improves health, but understanding how it makes you healthier on a molecular level is the question researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center are answering. After performing experiments in both humans and mice, the researchers found that exercise training causes dramatic changes to fat.
Every person with diabetes knows that they can make themselves crazy self-testing their blood glucose levels. Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) are an important tool that can make daily diabetes management a lot easier.
Recent studies have linked development of type 2 diabetes and impaired metabolic health individuals to their parents’ poor diet, and there is increasing evidence that fathers play an important role in obesity and metabolic programming of their offspring.In a new study published today in the journal Diabetes, researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have shown that paternal exercise has a significant impact on the metabolic health of their offspring well into adulthood.
BOSTON (October 15, 2018) – Harnessing the power of digital health technology --- smart phone apps, telemedicine and mobile health (m-health) --- can provide powerful tools to help people with diabetes self-management, ultimately improving A1c levels, reducing complications and lowering healthcare costs, suggests a recent systematic review of studies first published online September 27 in the journal Cell Metabolism.
RNA methylation might prove important in regulating many aspects of beta cell behavior, such as how the cells divide or how effectively they are stimulated by blood glucose to produce insulin
BOSTON – (October 10, 2018) – Type 2 diabetes is driven by many metabolic pathways, with some pathways driven by amino acids, the molecular building blocks for proteins. Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center now have shown that one amino acid, alanine, may produce a short-term lowering of glucose levels by altering energy metabolism in the cell.
Studying lab animals and humans, researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center discovered that a protein called JNK helps to drive response to exercise. If JNK is activated during exercise, the researchers say, that stimulates skeletal muscle growth. If it’s not activated, muscles improve their adaptation for endurance and aerobic capacity.
Researchers have long sought drugs that could help to prevent diabetic kidney disease (DKD), which afflicts about 40% of people with type 2 diabetes. Among the current contenders are a class of diabetes management drugs known as DPP-4 inhibitors. Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center now have shown that in mouse models of diabetic kidney disease, the DPP-4 inhibitor linagliptin produces two signs of prevention against kidney damage.
Like everyone, people with type 2 diabetes and obesity suffer from depression and anxiety, but even more so. Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center now have demonstrated a surprising potential contributor to these negative feelings – and that is the bacteria in the gut or gut microbiome, as it is known.
Managing type 1diabetes during the first two decades of life is challenging. Insulin requirements change along with the stages of life --- childhood, puberty, young adulthood, and beyond. But a 20-year longitudinal study conducted by researchers from Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard Medical School identifies clear predictors of rising A1c levels in young persons, as well as ways to improve glycemic control in this population.
Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have uncovered a new kind of clue to an individual's variable response to exercise--a hormone whose levels in the bloodstream rise sharply in exercise as well as in cold.Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have uncovered a new kind of clue to an individual's variable response to exercise--a hormone whose levels in the bloodstream rise sharply in exercise as well as in cold.
We are the first to demonstrate that pTregs are important in autoimmune diabetes, and we hypothesize that microbes in the gut, where most of this pTreg cell population is switched on, may be responsible for generating these protective cells and thus protecting against the autoimmune attack on pancreatic beta cells that cause type 1 diabetes.
Boston, MA – (January 22, 2018) – Legislators from both the Massachusetts House and Senate have voted on a Joint Resolution to urge the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and other public and private health providers to screen Asian Americans for diabetes at a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 23, which is a lower screening BMI than for the general population.
BOSTON – (November 29, 2017) – Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center have taken another step toward solving a long-standing puzzle about heart health in type 2 diabetes, with a finding that eventually may point towards more personalized patient care.People with type 2 diabetes, who are at least twice as likely to develop cardiovascular disease (CVD) as people without the condition, generally can reduce their risks by careful controlling their glycemic (blood glucose) levels.
BOSTON – (October 3, 2017) – If you’re one of the two billion people in the world who are over-weight or obese, or the one billion people with fatty liver disease, your doctor’s first advice is to cut calories—and especially to cut down on concentrated sugars such as high-fructose corn syrup, a sugar found in sweetened beverages and many other processed foods.
Joslin’s research involves a wide variety of biologic disciplines ranging from the most basic model systems to studies of pathophysiology in animal models and humans to the evaluation of new therapies in patients. The primary aim of the Joslin DRC is to provide a facilitating framework for conducting multi-disciplinary basic and clinical research and to encourage the scientific development of young investigators. Special attention is paid to fostering rapid translation of basic research.
Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have identified an unexpected natural protective factor against chronic inflammation that drives cardiovascular disease in type 2 diabetes.
“People are living longer with type 1 diabetes, and the onset of complications is taking longer,” says Hillary Keenan, Ph.D., a Joslin Diabetes Center Assistant Investigator and co-Principal Investigator on the Joslin 50-Year Medalist Study.
The award recognizes Aiello's research to determine the underlying biochemistry and molecular mechanisms of diabetic retinopathies, then develop and test novel therapeutic interventions through rigorous translational and clinical trial research.
Joslin Diabetes Center has established a Center for Cell-Based Therapy for Diabetes (CCTD), the goal of which is to lead the development and translation of cell-based interventions to treat and cure diabetes and its complications.
Doctors rely mostly on two biomarkers -- urinary albumin to creatinine ratio (ACR) and estimated glomerular filtration rate -- to identify those at higher risk of kidney failure.
But researchers say those criteria miss a large proportion of patients who are at high risk of the disease and fail to predict accurately time of onset of ESRD. Researchers from Joslin Diabetes Center have developed a prognostic tool that accurately predicts the risk of end stage renal disease (ESRD) in patients with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes researchers have puzzled for decades about why insulin-producing beta cells in one pancreatic islet often look and behave quite differently than their counterparts in the same islet or in nearby islets. Using newly identified cellular markers of aging, Joslin Diabetes Center scientists now have shown that this diversity may be driven at least in part by differently aged beta cell populations within the pancreas.
Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center now have identified a route by which fat also can deliver a form of small RNAs called microRNAs that helps to regulate other organs. This mechanism may offer the potential to develop an entirely new therapeutic approach.
Joslin Diabetes Center will take part in two clinical trials this year to test artificial pancreas systems designed to automatically monitor and regulate blood glucose levels in people with type 1 diabetes, which would replace traditional methods of managing the disease such as testing blood glucose levels by finger stick or using continuous glucose monitoring systems with separate, non-integrated delivery of insulin by either injections or a pump.
American Diabetes Association awards Aleksandar Kostic, PhD, of Joslin Diabetes Center, $1.625M for the development of a novel experimental system designed to improve our understanding about how bacteria in the gut (the gut “microbiome”) may contribute to the autoimmune attack that leads to type 1 diabetes.
Participants in Joslin's Why WAIT (Weight Achievement and Intensive Management) program lost substantial amounts of weight, and even those who maintained relatively little loss of weight after five years demonstrated reduced risks of cardiovascular disease.
People with any form of diabetes are at greater risk of developing cardiovascular conditions than people without the disease. Moreover, if they undergo an operation to open up a clogged artery by inserting a “stent” surgical tube, the artery is much more likely to clog up again. However, researchers at Joslin Diabetes Centers now have uncovered an explanation for why these procedures often fail, which may lead toward better alternatives.
Laurie J. Goodyear, PhD, at Joslin Diabetes Center will be part of the NIH's new MoTrPAC consortium and will help map molecular changes from physical activity.
Most people struggle with their weight and are less active than ever before. Taken together, this toxic lifestyle can lead to serious health problems. The truth is that 86 million American adults—more than one out of three—have prediabetes. What’s scarier is that nine out of 10 don’t know they have it.
Joslin Diabetes Center investigators are shedding light on how the success of such microbiome treatments may be affected by genetics of the individual or animal being treated.
Genes play a role in how people with type 2 diabetes at high risk of cardiovascular disease risk respond to intensive glycemic control as an intervention to prevent the disease.
There are no established drugs to improve angiogenesis in diabetes. However, researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center now have identified a gene called CITED2 in a molecular pathway that may offer targets for drugs that treat these conditions by strengthening angiogenesis.
Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center now have demonstrated that umbilical cells from children of obese or overweight mothers show impaired expression of key genes regulating cell energy and metabolism, compared to similar cells from babies of non-obese mothers.
But some studies are showing that these reactive oxygen species (ROS) molecules sometimes can aid in maintaining health—findings now boosted by a surprising discovery from Joslin Diabetes Center researchers.
Jennifer K. Sun, M.D., MPH, Investigator in the Section on Vascular Biology at Joslin Diabetes Center, an Ophthalmologist in Beetham Eye Institute (BEI) at Joslin Diabetes Center and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, has been granted an RPB Physician-Scientist Award by Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB).
Most pregnant women with well-controlled diabetes give birth to healthy children. But their babies run much higher risks of birth defects than babies born to women without diabetes, because very early in embryonic development, the babies are exposed to higher levels of glucose in maternal blood.
Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have announced the results of a study that may change how nutrition therapy is delivered to overweight and obese patients with type 2 diabetes.
Joslin Diabetes Center, a research and clinical affiliate of Harvard Medical School, today announced a newly signed collaboration with Sanofi (EURONEXT: SAN and NYSE: SNY) which extends their ongoing collaboration in exploring novel targets for treatment of diabetes.
George L. King, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer at Joslin Diabetes Center and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has been selected to receive the 2016 JDRF Mary Tyler Moore and S. Robert Levine Excellence in Clinical Research Award.
– Gordon Weir, M.D., Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation Chair, Co-Head of Section on Islet Cell and Regenerative Biology at Joslin Diabetes Center and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has been selected as the recipient of the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) 2016 Albert Renold Award.
In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the body’s own insulin-producing cells. Scientists understand reasonably well how this autoimmune attack progresses, but they don’t understand what triggers the attack or how to stop it, says Stephan Kissler, Ph.D., Investigator in the Section on Immunobiology at Joslin Diabetes Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
In obesity, the body’s immune system can treat tissues as if they are suffering from a low-grade chronic infection. This obesity-induced inflammation is an important contributor to insulin resistance, a condition that can progress into type 2 diabetes.
In a national clinical trial led by Joslin Diabetes Center’s Beetham Eye Institute, ultrawide field (UWF) scanning technology significantly improved the ability of experts at a remote central location to identify diabetic retinopathy in a patient, and to judge whether the eye disease warranted referring the patient to an ophthalmologist for further care.
Rohit N. Kulkarni, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Investigator in the Section on Islet Cell and Regenerative Biology at Joslin Diabetes Center, has been named Professor of Medicine by Harvard Medical School.