Scientists find Nerve cells as key to Diabetes

Contrary to popular medical beliefs that diabetes occurs only due to dysfunctional immune system, a team of Canadian and U.S. scientists claimed Friday that Nerve cells in the pancreas also play a key role in developing the disease. The scientists have proven their assumption after reversing the condition in mice.

It has always been believed that Type 1 diabetes occurs after a severe miscue by the immune system that causes insulin-producing "islet" cells in the pancreas to be ruined completely.

But the latest research, conducted by the researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Calgary, signaled that a control circuit exists between insulin-producing cells and their associated pain-related nerves, and is essential to retain the healthy and normal functioning of islet cells.

"What we really have discovered is that the immune system is under much closer control by the nervous system than we thought, that this control to a large extent involves sensory nerves," said principal investigator Dr. Michael Dosch, who is also an immunologist at Sick Kids Hospital.

As part of their studies on laboratory mice, the scientists eliminated the specific pain-related nerve cells in newborn lab mice, specially-bred to make them exposed to Type 1 diabetes. And, after destroying those cells, they found that the mice did not develop the disease, in spite of their genetic susceptibility.

The mice didn’t even develop inflammation of the pancreas, instead, the glandular organ that secretes digestive enzymes and hormones, remained entirely clean.

In another experiment, the researchers found that after injecting substance P, a compound that amplifies pain signals and inflammation, into mice whose islet cells were already inflamed, the inflammation in the animals' pancreatic islets had disappeared in just one day.

"We now have four-month-old mice that are non-diabetic that used to be diabetic," Dr. Dosch wrote in his work which published on December 15 in the journal Cell.

It is believed that this major breakthrough in the research of Type 1 diabetes could provide new ways to treat the disease in humans.

The research team now plans to begin clinical studies on people whose family history suggests they are at risk of developing type-1 diabetes to see if their pain related nerves work well.

Type-1 diabetes, a condition that leaves the body without insulin to regulate the metabolism of sugar, affects two million Americans and 200,000 Canadians, especially children or young teenagers.