HEALTH WE PANKREAS

You know what is pancreas? The pancreas is a gland organ in the digestive and endocrine system of vertebrates. It is both exocrine (secreting pancreatic juice containing digestive enzymes) and endocrine (producing several important hormones, including insulin, glucagon, and somatostatin). It also produces digestive enzymes that pass into the small intestine. These enzymes help in the further breakdown of the carbohydrates, protein, and fat in the chyme.WHAT IS DIABETES?Diabetes is a disease in which blood glucose levels are above normal. People with diabetes have problems converting food to energy. After a meal, food is broken down into a sugar called glucose, which is carried by the blood to cells throughout the body. Cells use insulin, a hormone made in the pancreas, to help them convert blood glucose into energy.People develop diabetes because the pancreas does not make enough insulin or because the cells in the muscles, liver, and fat do not use insulin properly, or both. As a result, the amount of glucose in the blood increases while the cells are starved of energy. Over the years, high blood glucose, also called hyperglycemia, damages nerves and blood vessels, which can lead to complications such as heart disease and stroke, kidney disease, blindness, nerve problems, gum infections, and amputation.
TYPES OF DIABETESThe three main types of diabetes are type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes, formerly called juvenile diabetes, is usually first diagnosed in children, teenagers, or young adults. In this form of diabetes, the beta cells of the pancreas no longer make insulin because the body's immune system has attacked and destroyed them.
Type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes, is the most common form. People can develop it at any age, even during childhood. This form of diabetes usually begins with insulin resistance, a condition in which muscle, liver, and fat cells do not use insulin properly. At first, the pancreas keeps up with the added demand by producing more insulin. In time, however, it loses the ability to secrete enough insulin in response to meals.
Gestational diabetes develops in some women during the late stages of pregnancy. Although this form of diabetes usually goes away after the baby is born, a woman who has had it is more likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life. Gestational diabetes is caused by the hormones of pregnancy or by a shortage of insulin.
PRE-DIABETES
In pre-diabetes, blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be characterized as diabetes. However, many people with pre-diabetes develop type 2 diabetes within 10 years. Pre-diabetes also increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. With modest weight loss and moderate physical activity, people with pre-diabetes can delay or prevent type 2 diabetes.
RISK FACTORTo find out your risk, check each item that applies to you.
I am 45 or older.
I am overweight or obese.
I have a parent, brother, or sister with diabetes.
I have had gestational diabetes, or I gave birth to at least one baby weighing more than 9 pounds.
My blood pressure is 140/90 or higher, or I have been told that I have high blood pressure.
My cholesterol levels are not normal. My HDL cholesterol ("good" cholesterol) is 35 or lower, or my triglyceride level is 250 or higher.
I am fairly inactive. I exercise fewer than three times a week.
POINTS TO REMEMBER
Diabetes and pre-diabetes are diagnosed by checking blood glucose levels.
Many people with pre-diabetes develop type 2 diabetes within 10 years.
If you have pre-diabetes, you can delay or prevent type 2 diabetes with a low-fat, low-calorie diet, modest weight loss, and regular physical activity.
If you are 45 or older, you should consider getting tested for diabetes. If you are 45 or older and overweight, it is strongly recommended that you get tested.
If you are younger than 45, are overweight, and have one or more of the, you should consider testing. You know whats is the diabetes will? its the some article about it :
Scientists have succeeded in transforming pancreatic cells from adult mice into insulin-producing beta cells, a feat they call an "extreme makeover." Researchers say feat could lead to treatment for diabetes
The achievement is a step toward finding a treatment or even a cure for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, both of which involve problems with either insulin production or uptake.
Through a series of painstaking experiments involving mice, the Harvard biologists pinpointed three crucial molecular switches that, when flipped, completely convert a common cell in the pancreas into the more precious insulin-producing ones that diabetics need to survive.
The experiments, detailed online last Wednesday in the journal Nature, raise the prospect that patients suffering from not only diabetes but also heart disease, strokes and many other ailments could eventually have some of their cells reprogrammed to cure their afflictions without the need for drugs, transplants or other therapies.
"It's kind of an extreme makeover of a cell," said Douglas A. Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who led the research. "The goal is to create cells that are missing or defective in people. It's very exciting."
The work was hailed as a welcome development even by critics of research involving embryonic stem cells, which can be coaxed to become any tissue in the body but are highly controversial because they are obtained by destroying embryos."I see no moral problem in this basic technique," said Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a leading opponent of embryonic stems cell research. "This is a 'win-win' situation for medicine and ethics."
Researchers in the field, who have become accustomed to rapid advances, said they, too, were surprised by the advance."I'm stunned," said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., a developer of stem cell therapies. "It introduces a whole new paradigm for treating disease."
Although the experiment involved mice, Melton and other researchers were optimistic that the approach would work in people.
"You never know for sure -- mice aren't humans," said George Q. Daley, a stem cell researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston. "But the biology of pancreatic development is very closely related in mice and humans."
Melton has already started experimenting with human cells in the laboratory and hopes that within a year he can start planning the first studies involving people with diabetes. "I would say within five years, we could be ready to start human trials," Melton said.
Other scientists have begun trying the approach on other cells, including those that could be used to treat spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative disorders such as Lou Gehrig's disease.
"The idea to be able to reprogram one adult neuron type into another for repair in the nervous system is very exciting," said Paola Arlotta, who is working in the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard Medical School in Boston.
The research is the latest development in the explosive field of regenerative medicine, which seeks to create replacement tissues and body parts tailored to patients. That objective appeared within reach after scientists discovered stem cells. But stem cell research has been hampered by objections from President bush and others who believe that the earliest stages of human life have moral standing.
Scientists last year shocked the field when they announced they had discovered how to manipulate the genes of adult cells to turn them back into the equivalent of embryonic cells -- entities dubbed "induced pluripotent stem" or "iPS" cells -- which could then be coaxed into any type of cell in the body.
The new work takes further advantage of the increasing ability scientists have developed in harnessing the once-mysterious inner workings of cells -- this time to skip the intermediary step of iPS cells and directly transform adult cells.
"This experiment proves you don't have to go all the way back to an embryonic state," Daley said. "You can use a related cell. That may be easier to do and more practical to do."
"Embryonic stem cells offer a unique window in human disease and remain a key to the long-term progress of regenerative medicine," Melton said.
For their work, Melton and his colleagues systematically studied cells from the pancreas of adult mice, slowly winnowing the list of genes necessary to make a "beta" cell that produces insulin. After narrowing the candidate genes to nine, the researchers genetically engineered viruses known as adenoviruses to ferry the genes into other pancreatic cells, known as exocrine cells, which normally secrete enzymes to help digest food. That finally enabled the researchers to identify the three crucial genes needed take control of the rest of the cell's genes to convert an exocrine cell into a beta cell.
"It was a mixture of work, luck and guessing," Melton said. "We achieved a complete transformation, or re-purposing, of cells from one type to another. We were delighted."
When the scientists tried the approach on diabetic mice, the animals became able to control their blood sugar levels."It didn't cure the mouse, but they were able to reduce their blood sugar levels to near-normal," Melton said.
Melton and others said it remains to be seen whether it will be necessary to use genetically engineered viruses, which could face obstacles obtaining regulatory approval because of concerns about unforeseen risks, or whether chemicals might be found to do the same thing.
If preliminary studies in the laboratory are promising, Melton said he might first try converting liver cells to insulin-producing pancreatic cells, because that would be safer than using the pancreas. An alternative strategy would be to use the approach to grow beta cells in the laboratory and transplant them into patients.
"One day, this may allow the doctor to replace the scalpel with a sort of genetic surgery," Lanza said. "If this can be perfected, it would represent one of the holy grails of medicine."

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