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New research points to a novel way to prevent the death of insulin-producing beta cells A study led by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has homed in on a newly discovered molecular mechanism that could prevent insulin resistance in type 2 diabetics. The research indicates disrupting the expression of a certain protein could protect beta cells and prevent patients from becoming insulin resistant. Type 2 diabetes can develop when insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas become dysfunctional, often following long-term high blood glucose levels. Eventually, those crucial beta cells begin to die, with the body...

RALEIGH, N.C. - Researchers say they've found more evidence of a link between a rapid rise in obesity and a corn product used to sweeten soft drinks and food since the 1970s. The researchers examined consumption records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 1967-2000 and combined it with previous research and their own analyses. The data showed an increase in the use of high-fructose corn sweeteners in the late 1970s and 1980s "coincidental with the epidemic of obesity," said one of the researchers, Dr. George A. Bray, a longtime obesity scientist with Louisiana State University System's Pennington Biomedical Research...

AMID calls for a major initiative on obesity, research suggests that parents should seek an alternative to the quick-fix carbohydrate breakfast out of a box, writes Robert Matthews The experts warned that it would happen, and last week it did. The first cases of adult-type diabetes were found in teenage children, triggered by a condition now reaching worrying proportions in the UK: obesity. A year ago, medical researchers revealed that the prevalence of fat children has doubled since the mid-1980s, with more than one in 10 in this country now classed as overweight. The finding prompted dire warnings about the...