"The evidence that these insulin-producing cells are both growing and dying is very important from a treatment point of view," says George King, M.D., senior author on the paper and head of the Dianne Nunnally Hoppes Laboratory for Diabetes Complications. "If we could increase the rate of growth and decrease the rate of death, we potentially could build up more insulin-producing cells and lead to a treatment or a cure."

Another major component to the Medalist study is the pursuit of factors that protect against diabetic complications. The Medalists provide an extraordinary opportunity for this research due to the high proportion who are free from complications. This search for protective rather than risk factors is part of a paradigm shift in Joslin's diabetes complications studies, says Dr. King, who also is Joslin's chief scientific officer and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

One impetus for the study of pancreatic insulin production in the Medalist cohort came in 2004 from an insight by Medalist Elizabeth Saalfeld, a Virginia resident who then had lived with diabetes for almost 60 years. Mrs. Saalfeld noted that at times her insulin requirements were so low that she believed her body was still making the hormone. She mentioned her observation to Dr. King, and follow-up lab analyses suggested that she was right.

SOURCE Joslin Diabetes Center