Scientists uncover potential treatment for painful side effect of diabetes
2012-05-17
(Press-News.org) Why diabetics suffer from increased pain and temperature sensitivity is a step closer to being understood and effectively treated.
Research published in the journal Nature Medicine reveals that a multi-national collaboration between scientists from Warwick Medical School in the UK, and universities in Germany, New York, Australia and Eastern Europe, has discovered key information around one of the most distressing side effects of diabetes.
Painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN), which is abnormal and persistent pain experienced by roughly 50% of patients with diabetes, impairs patients' quality of life and affects sleep, mood, mobility, ability to work, relationships, self-esteem and independence.
Currently there is no clear understanding of how abnormal glucose metabolism produces heightened pain in diabetics, but this study offers vital new insights. The Warwick team of Dr Naila Rabbani and Professor Paul Thornalley have worked for 30 years on a reactive compound produced excessively from glucose in diabetes called methylglyoxal (MG). The new research led by Professors Angelika Bierhaus, Peter Nawroth and colleagues convincingly shows that MG is a new culprit in pain discomfort and, having pinpointed its relevance, further research is being undertaken to develop ways of inhibiting its activity and therefore reduce pain.
Professor Thornalley from the University of Warwick, explained: "MG appears to attack and modify a key protein in the nerve endings called 'Nav 1.8' causing nerves to become super-sensitive to pain and extremes of temperature. So diabetics typically develop a heightened sensitivity to hot and cold, accompanied with intense pain.
"This collaborative research indicates that using small peptides to 'scavenge' the problem-causing compound will lead to a reduction in pain and opens up new routes to develop accurate, targeted drug treatments to help diabetics."
He added that an additional research programme at Warwick is currently investigating ways to increase the amount of an enzyme, glyoxalase 1 (Glo1), which removes MG catalytically.
"With global rates of diabetes increasing each year, our research is offering valuable insight into the science behind why glucose metabolism causes so many side effects and ultimately how we can develop treatments to improve patient care and outcomes."
INFORMATION:
Notes to Editors:
Link to paper: The DOI for the paper will be 10.1038/nm.2750.
Link to paper:
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.2750.html (abstracts are available to everyone, full text only to subscribers)
Dr Naila Rabbani is Associate Professor of Experimental Systems Biology and Professor Paul Thornalley is Professor of Systems Biology, both at Warwick Medical School, part of the University of Warwick.
Professors Angelika Bierhaus, Peter Nawroth are from the University of Heidelberg, Germany one of the collaborating partners.
For further information or to arrange interviews with either Professor Paul Thornalley or Dr Rabbani, contact Kate Cox, Communications Manager on +44 (0)2476 574255/150483, m: +44(0)7920 531221 or kate.cox@warwick.ac.uk.
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2012-05-17
The Oregon Family Abuse Prevention Act aims to protect families around the state from the ravages of domestic violence. One of the tools in the arsenal of legal weapons designed to fight against abuse is the protective order, sometimes known as a "no-contact order."
Like their name implies, protective orders are designed to keep one person a specific distance away from another person or location, thus protecting the one who sought the order from imminent physical harm. The protection they offer is often extended to include children and vulnerable loved ones. ...
2012-05-17
Researchers at Warwick Medical School have discovered a way of identifying which women are most at risk of postnatal depression (PND) by checking for specific genetic variants. The findings could lead to the development of a simple, accurate blood test which checks for the likelihood of developing the condition.
Presenting the research to the International Congress of Endocrinology/European Congress of Endocrinology, Professor Dimitris Grammatopoulos, Professor of Molecular Medicine at the University of Warwick, said that approximately one in seven women who give birth ...
2012-05-17
Genes play a greater role in forming character traits - such as self-control, decision making or sociability - than was previously thought, new research suggests.
A study of more than 800 sets of twins found that genetics were more influential in shaping key traits than a person's home environment and surroundings.
Psychologists at the University of Edinburgh who carried out the study, say that genetically influenced characteristics could well be the key to how successful a person is in life.
The study of twins in the US – most aged 50 and over– used a series of ...
2012-05-17
Across the United States, approximately 747,408 individuals are listed on sex offender registries. Contrary to popular belief, they are an incredibly heterogeneous group; they come from all walks of life, represent varied demographics and have criminal histories that range from a single relatively minor infraction to a laundry list of antisocial behavior.
Despite their diversity, sex offenders are treated much the same: they are listed on registries for all the public to see, they are prohibited from holding certain jobs or living in particular areas, they are often ...
2012-05-17
"The plants developed in the dark as if they were in light," says the Director of the studies Tilman Lamparter, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The seeds and seedlings of thale cress were fed with a synthetic substance named "15Ea-phycocyanobilin". In the plant cell, this substance replaces the natural, photoactive component of the photoreceptor, the "phytochromobilin". Incorporation of 15Ea-PCB activates the photoreceptor and the plant is made believe it is exposed to light. In spite of the darkness, model plants germinate and grow similar to a control group exposed ...
2012-05-17
In Illinois, a judgment creditor can obtain a court order to put in place a wage deduction from your earnings. This is commonly referred to as garnishment. This wage deduction takes a percentage of your wages, before you ever see them, and transfers them to your creditor.
Wage Garnishment
This wage deduction, or garnishment, can only be done where there is a valid judgment debt. In Illinois, the creditor then files an action in court to deduct the lesser of either 15 percent of your gross wages for a week or the amount by which disposable weekly earnings exceed 45 ...
2012-05-17
While experiments in the 1970s using electrical brain stimulation identified areas of the brain responsible for starting locomotion, the precise neuron-by-neuron pathway has not been described in any vertebrate – until now.
To find this pathway, Dr Edgar Buhl and colleagues in Bristol's School of Biological Sciences studied a small, simple vertebrate: the Xenopus frog tadpole.
They found that the pathway to initiate swimming consists of just four types of neurons. By touching skin on the head of the tadpole and applying cellular neurophysiology and anatomy techniques, ...
2012-05-17
Jerusalem, May 16, 2012 – A method developed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for training blind persons to "see" through the use of a sensory substitution device (SSD) has enabled those using the system to actually "read" an eye chart with letter sizes smaller than those used in determining the international standard for blindness.
The eight congenitally blind participants in the Hebrew University test group passed the conventional eye-exam of the Snellen acuity test, technically surpassing the world-agreed criterion of the World Health Organization (WHO) for ...
2012-05-17
Chapter 11 bankruptcy is designed to offer relief to business corporations and partnerships that have become overwhelmed by debt. In some cases, Chapter 11 bankruptcy can also be helpful to high-income individuals who do not qualify for relief under Chapter 7 or Chapter 13.
Chapter 11 was developed more than 30 years ago as a way for filers to reorganize their financial affairs and pay creditors back over time. Recently, though, a number of prominent bankruptcy lawyers have begun to voice concerns that the current Chapter 11 system may not be well-suited to the realities ...
2012-05-17
In a study about to be published in EPJ E¹, French physicists from the Curie Institute in Paris have demonstrated that the behaviour of a thin layer of cells in contact with an unfavourable substrate is akin to that of thin fluid or elastic films. Understanding the mechanism by which a thin layer of cells splits into disjointed patches, thus breaking the layer's structural integrity, bears great significance because the human tissue, or epithelium, covering organs can only fulfil its role if there are no holes or gaps between the cells.
Thanks to the analogy between the ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Scientists uncover potential treatment for painful side effect of diabetes
