(Press-News.org) DALLAS – Oct. 20, 2010 – New findings by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers suggest a novel role for the brain in mediating beneficial actions of the hormone leptin in type 1 diabetes.
"Our findings really pave the way for understanding the mechanism by which leptin therapy improves type 1 diabetes," said Dr. Roberto Coppari, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study involving laboratory mice. "Understanding the mechanism is important, because if we can determine how leptin drives these benefits, then we may be able to develop drugs that eliminate the need for insulin."
The findings are available online and will be published in a future issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Prior research by Dr. Roger Unger, professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, has shown that subcutaneous administration of leptin, a hormone produced by the body's fat cells, can restore terminally ill rodents with type 1 diabetes to full health. The underlying cellular mechanisms that caused that effect, however, have been unclear.
In the current study, the researchers injected leptin continuously into the brains of mice that lacked any naturally produced insulin. Lack of or reduced insulin production is the hallmark of type 1 diabetes in humans.
They found that infusing leptin into the lateral ventricle of the animals' brains reversed the lethal consequences of type 1 diabetes. The results establish the brain as a potentially critical site for mediating the metabolism-improving actions of leptin, Dr. Coppari said.
The team's findings also indicate the smallest amount of leptin required to normalize the animals' food intake, body weight and blood sugar levels.
A human clinical trial currently under way at UT Southwestern aims to determine whether adding leptin to standard insulin therapy might help rein in the tumultuous blood-sugar levels of people with type 1 diabetes.
"It might be that leptin treatment is not going to be effective or well-tolerated or that it might cause unwanted effects," Dr. Coppari said. "However, if we understand the mechanisms and how leptin improves type 1 diabetes, then perhaps we can develop alternatives to harness those mechanisms."
The next step, Dr. Coppari said, is to determine which specific nerve cells in the brain are responsible for the anti-type 1 diabetic actions of leptin.
"Living without insulin was once considered impossible, but our results have shown that it is possible when leptin receptor signaling in the brain is enhanced. If we can identify which neurons are responsible for driving the anti-type 1 diabetic actions of leptin, we may eventually develop better therapies for individuals with type 1 diabetes."
###
Other UT Southwestern researchers involved in the study were Dr. Teppei Fujikawa, lead author and postdoctoral researcher in internal medicine; and Drs. Jen-Chieh Chuang, Giorgio Ramadori and Ichiro Sakata, postdoctoral researchers in internal medicine.
The National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association funded the study.
Visit http://www.utsouthwestern.org/edocrinology to learn more about UT Southwestern's clinical services in endocrinology.
This news release is available on our World Wide Web home page at
http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/home/news/index.html
To automatically receive news releases from UT Southwestern via e-mail,
subscribe at www.utsouthwestern.edu/receivenews
END
DENVER (October 19, 2010) - Long derided as mere entertainment, new research now shows that organizations using video games to train employees end up with smarter, more motivated workers who learn more and forget less.
A University of Colorado Denver Business School study found those trained on video games do their jobs better, have higher skills and retain information longer than workers learning in less interactive, more passive environments.
"Companies have been designing video games for employees for years but so far it has all been done on a hunch. They suspected ...
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 – When the military needs to send the key to encrypted data across the world, it can't necessarily rely on today's communication lines, where the message could be covertly intercepted. But physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta are developing a new, more secure way to send such information across far distances, using existing cables and the laws of quantum mechanics.
Alex Kuzmich and colleagues have built a critical component of a quantum repeater, a device that allows quantum communications -- such as the encryption keys used ...
Proton beam therapy is safe and effective and may be superior to other conventional treatments for Stage I inoperable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, according to a study in the October issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, the official journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death for men and women, according to the American Cancer Society. The standard treatment for early-stage lung cancer is surgery to remove all or part of the lung, but for patients ...
Many of the assumptions people have about black youth—that they are politically detached and negatively influenced by rap music and videos—are false stereotypes, according to a new University of Chicago study by Prof. Cathy Cohen, based on surveys and conversations with the youth themselves.
Black youth say they are politically involved, critical of many messages in rap and skeptical of the idea that the country has entered a post-racial era. They also are socially conservative on political issues such same-sex marriage, said Cohen, the David and Mary Winton Green Professor ...
AUSTIN, Texas — Because of impairments in their insulin sensitivity, obese individuals demonstrate different brain responses than their normal-weight peers while completing a challenging cognitive task, according to new research by psychologists at The University of Texas at Austin.
The results provide further evidence that a healthy lifestyle at midlife could lead to a higher quality of life later on, especially as new drugs and treatments allow people to live longer.
"The good thing about insulin sensitivity is that it's very modifiable through diet and exercise," ...
URBANA – University of Illinois scientists think they have solved an interesting problem: how to get protein-deficient Indian schoolchildren to consume soy, an inexpensive and complete vegetable protein. What's more, they've joined forces with an Indian foundation that can get the high-protein soy snack they've developed into the hands of 1.2 million hungry kids who need it.
"Although the country has decidedly vegetarian tastes, the Indian people just don't care for soy," said Soo-Yeun Lee, a U of I associate professor of food science and human nutrition.
India is ...
Washington, D.C. (October 19, 2010) -- In the world of the very small, researchers at Shanxi University in China have announced progress in understanding the single-molecule magnet, which combines the classical macroscale properties of a magnet with the quantum properties of a nanoscale entity. In the Journal of Applied Physics, Hai-Bin Xue and colleagues studied the statistics of how electrons move through a single-molecule magnet to better understand the magnet's inner level structure.
Understanding the single-molecule magnet inner level structure is an important step ...
In a world first, a completely robotic surgery and anesthesia has been performed at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). The DaVinci surgical robot, which lets surgeons work from remote locations, was put to work this summer, whereas the anesthesia robot, nicknamed McSleepy, has been providing automated anesthesia since 2008. The two combined to perform the first all-robotic surgery on a prostatectomy patient at the Montreal General Hospital.
"Collaboration between DaVinci, a surgical robot, and anesthetic robot McSleepy, seemed an obvious fit; robots in medicine ...
Princeton engineers have developed a sensor that may revolutionize how drugs and medical devices are tested for contamination, and in the process also help ensure the survival of two species of threatened animals.
To be fair, some of the credit goes to an African frog.
In the wild, the African clawed frog produces antibacterial peptides -- small chains of amino acids -- on its skin to protect it from infection. Princeton researchers have found a way to attach these peptides, which can be synthesized in the laboratory, to a small electronic chip that emits an electrical ...
Outgoing. Assertive. Calm. Practical. Decisive. These are obvious qualities that one would want in their leaders.
But what about, say, arrogant, hesitant, overly dramatic, inflexible, or being a "yes-man"? A new study has found that when it comes to leading, some of those negative personality traits aren't such a bad thing, either.
The work, by researchers in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Business Administration, studied the development of leaders over a three-year period. Prior research had established that clearly positive personality qualities ...
