Diabetes: Could targeting this protein prevent hypoglycemia?
People with type 1 or type 2 diabetes who take insulin have a higher risk of developing hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. Now, a study of how a protein works in the pancreas could lead to new treatments for protecting against the potentially life-threatening condition.
Dr. Gina L. C. Yosten, who is an assistant professor of pharmacology and physiology at Saint Louis University in Missouri, and her team discovered the protein, which has the name neuronostatin, in earlier work.
They found that neuronostatin could prevent hypoglycemia by getting the pancreas to raise blood sugar in two ways. One way is to make less insulin, which is a hormone that reduces blood sugar, and the other is to produce more glucagon, a hormone that increases blood sugar.
In the more recent investigation, the scientists showed that injecting rats with neuronostatin raised the animals' blood sugar levels.
They also found that low blood sugar causes human pancreatic tissue to release more neuronostatin and that treatment with glucagon triggers more neuronostatin release.
The team says that, with more research, these findings could lead to neuronostatin becoming a target for drugs to prevent and treat hypoglycemia in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
The study has featured at the annual meeting of the American Physiological Society during the Experimental Biology 2019 interdisciplinary meeting, which is taking place from April 6–9 in Orlando, FL.
"There are very few options," says Stephen Grote, a doctoral student in Dr. Yosten's group, "for preventing hypoglycemia or treating hypoglycemia unawareness other than avoiding low blood sugar as much as possible."
"Understanding what neuronostatin does and how it works will provide valuable information for preventing hypoglycemia and provide more complete knowledge into how the pancreas manages blood sugar normally," he adds.
Diabetes and the pancreas
Diabetes arises because the body has problems making or using insulin, which is a hormone that helps cells to take in glucose, or blood sugar, and use it for energy.
Without effective treatment, diabetes results in high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, which can lead to kidney failure, blindness, stroke, heart attack, and amputation of feet and lower legs.
There are two main types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. The vast majority of people with diabetes have type 2.
In type 1 diabetes, the body does not make enough insulin, and so people with this type need to take insulin every day to stop their blood sugar rising to dangerous levels.
In type 2 diabetes, the cells of the body cannot use insulin effectively. The pancreas tries to make up for it by making even more insulin, but, eventually, this is not enough, and people need to take extra insulin to control their blood sugar.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of people worldwide with diabetes rose from 108 to 422 million during 1980–2014.
In the United States, there are around 30 million people with diabetes of which 90–95 percent have type 2.
