Fasting diet could reverse diabetes by regenerating pancreas

Sign In e-paper New Delhi 31°C india cities coronavirus #WFHLife opinion world cricket entertainment education trending videos tech Search ADVERTISEMENT Fasting diet could reverse diabetes by regenerating pancreas The pancreas can be triggered to regenerate itself through a type of fasting diet, say US researchers. health-and-fitness Updated: Feb 24, 2017 20:37 IST IANS New York People with diabetes could one day be treated with an FDA-approved Fasting Mimicking Diet for a few days each month.(Shutterstock)           A type of fasting diet may reprogramme pancreas cells, promote the growth of new insulin-producing pancreatic cells and reduce symptoms of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, a study has showed. In the study, led by researchers from the University of Southern California, mice were placed on fasting mimicking diet (FMD) for four days each week  which showed remarkable reversal of diabetes. The mice regained healthy insulin production, reduced insulin resistance and demonstrated more stable levels of blood glucose -- even in the later stages of the disease, the researchers said in the paper published in the journal Cell. The genes normally active in the developing pancreas of embryonic/foetal mice are reactivated in diabetic adult mice when cycling FMD with normal diets. This increases production of the protein neurogenin-3 (Ngn3) and, as a result, promotes the creation of new, healthy insulin-producing beta cells. Read more Weight loss drug may cut diabetes risky by 80%: Study Even a single meal of pizza, burgers ups risk of diabetes, liver disease Researchers also examined pancreatic cell cultures from human donors and found that, in cells from Type 1 diabetes patients, nutrients mimicking fasting also increased expression of the Ngn3 protein and insulin production. “These findings warrant a larger FDA trial on the use of the Fasting Mimicking Diet to treat diabetes patients,” said Valter Longo from the University of Southern California. “People with diabetes could one day be treated with an FDA-approved Fasting Mimicking Diet for a few days each month, eat a normal diet for the rest of the month, and see positive results in their ability to control their blood sugar by producing normal levels of insulin and improving insulin function,” Longo added.  .............................................................................................................. Fasting periods in Hinduism Hinduism is marked by several periods of fasting. The most commonly-observed fast, Ekadashi, is respected approximately twice a month, on the eleventh day of each ascending and descending moon. During the months of July and August, many Hindus adopt a vegetarian diet and fast on Mondays and Saturdays until the evening.

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Those pills to reduce gastric acid may silently damage your kidney: study

ANI

Published Feb 23, 2017, 9:45 am IST

Updated Feb 23, 2017, 9:53 am IST

The pills erode kidney function and lead to long-term kidney damage and even renal failure

 Proton pump inhibitors (PPI) used to reduce gastric acid are a major reason for kidney damage in most people. (Photo: Pixabay)

Washington D.C.: Beware! US researchers warned that taking drugs to reduce gastric acid for prolonged periods may lead to serious kidney problems, including kidney failure.Taking popular heartburn drugs for prolonged periods has been linked to serious kidney problems.Heartburn is the form of indigestion as burning sensation in the chest, caused by acid regurgitation into the oesophagus.
According to researchers from Washington university in St. Louis, the sudden onset of kidney problems often serves as a red flag for doctors to discontinue their patients' use of so-called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) that reduce the secretion of gastric (stomach) acid.The study appeared in the journal of Kidney International.
"Our results indicate kidney problems can develop silently and gradually over time, eroding kidney function and leading to long-term kidney damage or even renal failure. Patients should be cautioned to tell their doctors if they're taking PPIs and only use the drugs when necessary," said study's senior author Ziyad Al-Aly.
The team analysed 1,25,596 new users of PPIs and 18,436 new users of other heartburn drugs referred to as H2 blockers. The latter are much less likely to cause kidney problems but often aren't as effective.Over five years of follow up study, the results indicated that more than 80 percent of PPI users did not develop acute kidney problems, which often are reversible and are characterised by too little urine leaving the body, fatigue and swelling in the legs and ankles.
More than half of the cases of chronic kidney damage and end-stage renal disease associated with PPI use occurred in people without acute kidney problems."Doctors must pay careful attention to kidney function in their patients who use PPIs, even when there are no signs of problems," cautioned Al-Aly.
"In general, we always advise clinicians to evaluate whether PPI use is medically necessary in the first place because the drugs carry significant risks, including a deterioration of kidney function," Al-Aly concluded.

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Immunotherapy has shown great promise as a new type of treatment for cancer,

TheHealthSite

Scientists have found out how immune system can learn to recognise and fight cancers TheHealthSite  - ‎3 hours ago‎ Scientists have found out how immune system can learn to recognise and fight cancers Immunotherapy has shown great promise as a new type of treatment for cancer. Agencies   | Published: February 3, 2017 10:01 am 0 Shares Facebook share Twitter share Share on Google+ Tags: Cancer  Cancer Treatment  Memory  Immune system  Diseases & Conditions   Scientists from the University of Southampton in a latest study have discovered an important way in which the immune system can learn to recognise and fight cancers. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, shows that ‘Akt’ is critical for survival of T cells when they turn into memory cells and for how these can then react to future threats. The team, led by Professor Aymen Al-Shamkhani, a Professor of Immunology at the University of Southampton, and funded by Cancer Research UK, has shown that a protein called Akt, is vital for the way the body remembers a cancer it has eradicated. The body’s immune system includes cytotoxic T cells, which actively seek out and destroy infections or cancers. When they have dealt with the danger, the majority of T cells die, but the remaining ones turn into memory cells, which can recognise the threat if it comes back. However, how this actually works has previously not been clear. The Southampton team has found that a protein called Akt has a big effect on the number and type of memory T cells that a danger signal can generate. Professor Al-Shamkhani says that: “If we can harness Akt to boost the memory cells in numbers and ability we could offer more protection against cancer.” He added: “Immunotherapy has shown great promise as a new type of treatment for cancer, but we need to find ways to improve the body’s immune memory for cancer cells. If we can get the body’s immune system to recognise cancers faster and better, that will be a big help in finding more effective treatments.” Dr Justine Alford, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, says: “By revealing more about how the immune system learns to recognise and attack cancers, this laboratory study may have identified a way to make immunotherapy more effective and longer-lasting. The next step will be to see if this approach works, and is safe for patients.” Over the past 40 years the University of Southampton has made a number of advances in cancer immunology and immunotherapy research, with a reputation for its ‘bench to bedside’ results. This year, the University will open The Centre for Cancer Immunology. It is the first of its kind in the UK and will bring world leading cancer scientists under one roof and enable interdisciplinary teams to expand clinical trials and develop lifesaving drugs. (Read: Revealed! How cancer fools our immune system)

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Scientist says international journal violated ethics on Bihar's 'litchi disease' report

The Hindu

- ‎7 hours ago‎

The scientist who investigated the mystery disease that proved fatal for many 15-year old children in Muzaffarpur, Bihar at the instance of the State government has raised ethics issues about the way the research has been published by the journal ...

Scientist says international journal violated ethics on Bihar’s ‘litchi disease’ report

R. Prasad

CHENNAI: February 03, 2017 00:00 IST

Updated: February 03, 2017 04:24 IST

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The scientist who investigated the mystery disease that proved fatal for many 15-year old children in Muzaffarpur, Bihar at the instance of the State government has raised ethics issues about the way the research has been published by the journal Lancet Global Health on January 30.
“Not giving due credit for work done by others is not acceptable in science,” Dr. T. Jacob John, a virologist who was earlier attached to the Christian Medical College, (CMC) Vellore says.
“They quote our study but don’t honestly say what we have found. If they did that then they can’t claim originality. They have done a large case-control study but borrowed all important information connected with the illness from us,” he argues.
Dr. John published in 2014 evidence of a link between a fruit in Jamaica, the ackee, from the same family as litchi, and a disease called acute encephalopathy in Jamaicans. He showed the close clinical similarity between ackee poisioning and the Muzaffarpur illness, where litchi consumption and skipping the evening meal could result in very low blood glucose and acute encephalopathy, leading to seizures and coma, and death in many cases.
Authors refute claim
The Lancet authors, however, refute this. “We have acknowledged and cited all three of Dr. John and his colleagues’ papers in Current Science ,” Dr. Padmini Srikantiah at CDC Atlanta and the corresponding author said in an email. “There are a few key findings in our study that have not been, to our knowledge, reported previously. First: the evidence of the metabolites of hypoglycin A and methylenecyclopropylglycine (MCPG) in the specimens of affected children, and the demonstrated metabolic abnormalities that resulted due to the effects of these toxins. And, second, a statistically significant epidemiological association between illness and litchi consumption, as well as the modifying effect of the absence of an evening meal.”
Dr. John’s team had in a May 2014 paper in Current Science pointed out that the illness was due to non-infectious encephalopathy and not viral encephalitis as was widely suspected. That it was a form of encephalopathy associated with low blood sugar was again emphasised in a August 2014 paper in Current Science .
A December 2015 Current Science paper reported presence of MCPG in litchi ; but not MCPG or hypoglycin A in samples of children. But the study strongly suggested the role of MCPG.
“Our finding provides the much needed evidence for biological plausibility that litchi consumption by undernourished children, especially after prolonged fasting, triggers the hypoglycaemic encephalopathy,” early in the morning, the paper says.

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Dr. Jacob John’s team said the illness was due to non-infectious encephalopathy and not viral encephalitis

India Today

Litchis behind mysterious child deaths in Bihar: study

India Today

- ‎4 hours ago‎

Outbreaks of an acute neurological illness with high mortality among children occur annually in Bihar's Muzaffarpur, country's largest litchi cultivation region.

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Killer fruit? Lychee cause of mysterious disease that plagued Indian town

By Juliet Perry

Updated 0732 GMT (1532 HKT) February 1, 2017

India fights against malnutrition 02:48

Story highlights

• Fatal illness in children caused by missing a meal and lychee intake, says study
• There have been reports of the mystery disease in Bihar since 1995, says the report

(CNN)Every year since 1995, a mystery illness has plagued the town of Muzaffarpur in Bihar, India.

Around May and June each year, large numbers of young children would start showing signs of fever. They'd have seizures and convulsions, before slipping in and out of consciousness.

In 2014, hundreds of children were admitted to hospital exhibiting symptoms of this illness, branded locally as "chamki ki bimari," or "tinsel disease." Of 390 admitted for treatment, 122 died.

Teams of researchers and medical experts searched exhaustively to find the cause, but to no avail. Until now.

A new report, published in The Lancet Global Health medical journal on Tuesday, claims to have discovered what's behind the devastating disease: the unassuming lychee, otherwise known as litchi.

Heat, humidity, malnourishment, the monsoon and pesticides have all been considered at one stage to be contributing factors to the illness -- said to resemble encephalitis symptomatically, a disease that causes inflammation of the brain.

Killer fruit?

Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and India's National Centre for Disease Control compared test results of children who had developed the mysterious illness, and children who had not.

Analysis of blood and spinal fluid samples showed no signs of infection or exposure to chemicals and insecticides.

However, most of the children who had fallen ill had eaten lychee fruit recently. They were also six times more likely to have visited a fruit orchard in the last 24 hours, the study said.

A fruit vendor offers lychees to customers from his roadside stall in Amritsar, India.

Muzaffarpur, Bihar, is the largest lychee farming region in India.

According to the study, parents reported that children in the affected villages spent most of the day eating lychees from the surrounding orchards, often returning home in the evening "uninterested in eating a meal."

The results said that children who fell ill were twice as likely to have skipped dinner, which, according to the researchers probably resulted in "night-time hypoglycaemia."

When their blood sugar level dropped, the body would start to metabolize fatty acids to produce a necessary boost of glucose.

However, urine samples showed that two-thirds of the ill children showed evidence of exposure to toxins found in lychee seeds -- found in higher levels in unripe fruits.

In the presence of these toxins "glucose synthesis is severely impaired," the study said, leading to dangerously low blood sugar and brain inflammation in the children.

'Unidentified genetic differences'

The Indian government issued a statement Wednesday advising children to henceforth "minimize litchi fruit consumption" in affected areas, and eat an evening meal during the "outbreak period."

However, the researchers said there are still some questions surrounding the mystery. For example, while orchards surround many villages in the area, typically only one child in each village develops the illness. The report suggests it may be something to do with genetics.

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"The synergistic combination of litchi consumption, a missed evening meal, and other potential factors such as poor nutritional status, eating a greater number of litchis, and as yet unidentified genetic differences might be needed to produce this illness," the study said.

However, it added that similar outbreaks had been reported in another lychee cultivation areas in West Bengal, and also beyond India in parts of Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Previous research had focused on pesticides rather than the fruit itself, but "the findings of our investigations might help to shed light on the cause of illness in the Bangladesh and Vietnam outbreaks," the study said.

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