Associate professor Per M lgaard and postdoc Joan Campbell-Tofte from the Department of Medicinal Chemistry have previously tested the tea on genetically diabetic mice. The results of the tests showed that after six weeks of daily treatment with the African tea, combined with a low-fat diet, resulted in changes in the combination and amount of fat in the animals' eyes and protection of the fragile pancreas of the mice.

The researchers have recently completed a four month long clinical test on 23 patients with type-2 diabetes and are more than satisfied with the result.

'The research subjects drank 750ml of tea each day. The cure appears to differentiate itself from other current type-2 diabetes treatments because the tea does not initially affect the sugar content of the blood. But after four months of treatment with tea we can, however, see a significant increase in glucose tolerance,' said postdoc Joan Campbell-Tofte from the University of Copenhagen.

The clinical tests show another pattern in the changes in fatty acid composition with the patients treated in comparison with the placebo group.

'In the patient group who drank the tea, the number of polyunsaturated fatty acids increased. That is good for the body's cells because the polyunsaturated fat causes the cell membranes to be more permeable, which results in the cells absorbing glucose better from the blood,' said Joan Campbell-Tofte.

The researchers hope that new clinical tests and scientific experiments in the future will result in a new treatment for type-2 diabetics.

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The researchers use species-specific differences to track the unique gene-expression profiles of each cell type. They found that if the muscle cell nuclei outnumbered the skin cell nuclei, the skin nuclei began to express muscle-specific genes within a few hours of fusion. When the skin cell nuclei were more numerous, the muscle cell nuclei switched to express skin-specific genes. What's more, the heterokaryons themselves assumed the morphology of the ruling cell type - flat and roundish like skin cells or long and skinny like muscle cells.

"We were especially pleased to see that the muscle cells could begin to act like skin," said Blau, whose laboratory had previously shown in similar experiments that muscle cells can influence the fate of other cells. "But now we know it can go both ways."

The outnumbered nuclei assumed their new identities both quickly and decisively - there was a telling lack of cells expressing characteristics of both muscle and skin.

"It's all or nothing," said Blau. "At a certain threshold, a switch is flipped and the cell becomes committed to a specific fate." Although the precise molecular regulators of such a switch have not yet been identified, Blau speculates that proteins or small RNAs in the cytoplasm of the predominant cell modify the gene expression program of the minority nuclei.

In addition to homing in on these regulators, the researchers are repeating the experiment with a variety of different cell types. "This shows that it can be done," said Blau. "Currently, inducing pluripotency in adult cells is time consuming and inefficient. We'd like to improve on that, or explore ways to skip that step altogether. We're coming at the problem from all angles."

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