有關糖尿病的一篇報導

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Ancient Wisdom: Chinese extract may yield diabetes treatment

Christen Brownlee

A plant extract used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat type 2 diabetes could form the basis for new treatments for the disease, scientists now report.

a7371_158.jpg

FLOWER POWER. This blossom of Gardenia jasminoides will yield fruit that could be the start of a treatment for type 2 diabetes.
iStockphoto

In some cases of type 2 diabetes, a person's pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin, a hormone that prompts cells to take in blood sugar. Studies have indicated that a substance called uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2), which is also secreted by pancreatic cells, reduces how much insulin is produced.

Lab animals that have the symptoms of type 2 diabetes often have high concentrations of UCP2, says diabetes researcher Bradford Lowell of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Animals engineered to lack the protein typically resist becoming diabetic even when they have risk factors such as obesity.

These findings suggest that inhibiting UCP2 might alleviate type 2 diabetes, says Lowell. However, no drug is known to block the protein's action.

In a search for UCP2-inhibiting compounds, Lowell's colleague Chen-Yu Zhang tested an extract made from the fruits of Gardenia jasminoides. Chinese-medicine practitioners have used pods from this shrub, also known as the cape jasmine, for thousands of years to treat type 2 diabetes.

Zhang, who now works at Nanjing University in China, Lowell, and their colleagues found that the extract stimulated pancreas cells taken from normal mice to secrete insulin. However, cells from mice engineered to lack UCP2 didn't respond. These results suggested that the extract contained the UCP2 inhibitor that the researchers were seeking.

To isolate the target substance, the researchers teamed with chemists who separated the extract into its individual components. Tests showed that one of them, a small molecule called genipin, was solely responsible for the UCP2 inhibition.

Lowell notes that scientists have studied genipin because it causes proteins to stick to each other, a factor that could cause problems in a drug. Therefore, his team fashioned a genipin derivative that lacked this protein-linking activity.

When Lowell and his colleagues tested genipin and the derivative on pancreatic cells isolated from mice with a version of type 2 diabetes, both compounds caused the cells to release more insulin.

Lowell's team reports in the June Cell Metabolism that genipin could be "a starting point" for developing UCP2-inhibiting drugs, though such compounds would require years of research before hitting the market. "This approach needs much further work to find out how good it really is," Lowell says.

Diabetes researcher Michael Wheeler of the University of Toronto agrees that "more rigorous testing" needs to be done. However, he notes that a drug based on the plant extract "sounds promising."

"Obviously, medicines in all sorts of cultures come from natural products. Some of those natural products hold a lot of truth," Wheeler says.

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08/06/2006  - An extract of Gardenia fruit that has been used in Chinese medicine for centuries has shown promise in laboratory tests for its potential to help manage type II diabetes, researchers report.

An estimated 19 million people are affected by diabetes in the EU, equal to four per cent of the total population. This figure is projected to increase to 26 million by 2030.

Diabetes sufferers have a deficiency or resistance to insulin, produced in the pancreas, which causes their blood sugar levels to rise.

Insulin controls blood levels of glucose, the body's main energy source. In those with diabetes, insulin deficiency or insulin resistance causes blood sugar concentrations to rise.

A research team from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in the US applied the extract of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis to pancreas cells taken from mice.

They observed that cells from normal mice secreted insulin, whereas cells from mice lacking an uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2), which prevents insulin being produced, did not.

This led them to suggest that the extract blocks the activity of UCP2, and through chemical analyses the active compound responsible for this activity was identified as genipin.

The study is published in Cell Metabolism (June 7 2006).

Although a good deal more research would need to be conducted, the scientists were positive that their findings may mean the extract could be used in the development of new diabetes drugs to target the underlying causes of diabetes.

Moreover, they said the findings may also boost use of the extract itself, particularly in its native eastern Asia.

溪黄草555

Ancient Wisdom: Chinese extract may yield diabetes treatment

Christen Brownlee

A plant extract used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat type 2 diabetes could form the basis for new treatments for the disease, scientists now report.

a7371_158.jpg

FLOWER POWER. This blossom of Gardenia jasminoides will yield fruit that could be the start of a treatment for type 2 diabetes.
iStockphoto

In some cases of type 2 diabetes, a person's pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin, a hormone that prompts cells to take in blood sugar. Studies have indicated that a substance called uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2), which is also secreted by pancreatic cells, reduces how much insulin is produced.

Lab animals that have the symptoms of type 2 diabetes often have high concentrations of UCP2, says diabetes researcher Bradford Lowell of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Animals engineered to lack the protein typically resist becoming diabetic even when they have risk factors such as obesity.

These findings suggest that inhibiting UCP2 might alleviate type 2 diabetes, says Lowell. However, no drug is known to block the protein's action.

In a search for UCP2-inhibiting compounds, Lowell's colleague Chen-Yu Zhang tested an extract made from the fruits of Gardenia jasminoides. Chinese-medicine practitioners have used pods from this shrub, also known as the cape jasmine, for thousands of years to treat type 2 diabetes.

Zhang, who now works at Nanjing University in China, Lowell, and their colleagues found that the extract stimulated pancreas cells taken from normal mice to secrete insulin. However, cells from mice engineered to lack UCP2 didn't respond. These results suggested that the extract contained the UCP2 inhibitor that the researchers were seeking.

To isolate the target substance, the researchers teamed with chemists who separated the extract into its individual components. Tests showed that one of them, a small molecule called genipin, was solely responsible for the UCP2 inhibition.

Lowell notes that scientists have studied genipin because it causes proteins to stick to each other, a factor that could cause problems in a drug. Therefore, his team fashioned a genipin derivative that lacked this protein-linking activity.

When Lowell and his colleagues tested genipin and the derivative on pancreatic cells isolated from mice with a version of type 2 diabetes, both compounds caused the cells to release more insulin.

Lowell's team reports in the June Cell Metabolism that genipin could be "a starting point" for developing UCP2-inhibiting drugs, though such compounds would require years of research before hitting the market. "This approach needs much further work to find out how good it really is," Lowell says.

Diabetes researcher Michael Wheeler of the University of Toronto agrees that "more rigorous testing" needs to be done. However, he notes that a drug based on the plant extract "sounds promising."

"Obviously, medicines in all sorts of cultures come from natural products. Some of those natural products hold a lot of truth," Wheeler says.

溪黄草555

08/06/2006  - An extract of Gardenia fruit that has been used in Chinese medicine for centuries has shown promise in laboratory tests for its potential to help manage type II diabetes, researchers report.

An estimated 19 million people are affected by diabetes in the EU, equal to four per cent of the total population. This figure is projected to increase to 26 million by 2030.

Diabetes sufferers have a deficiency or resistance to insulin, produced in the pancreas, which causes their blood sugar levels to rise.

Insulin controls blood levels of glucose, the body's main energy source. In those with diabetes, insulin deficiency or insulin resistance causes blood sugar concentrations to rise.

A research team from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in the US applied the extract of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis to pancreas cells taken from mice.

They observed that cells from normal mice secreted insulin, whereas cells from mice lacking an uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2), which prevents insulin being produced, did not.

This led them to suggest that the extract blocks the activity of UCP2, and through chemical analyses the active compound responsible for this activity was identified as genipin.

The study is published in Cell Metabolism (June 7 2006).

Although a good deal more research would need to be conducted, the scientists were positive that their findings may mean the extract could be used in the development of new diabetes drugs to target the underlying causes of diabetes.

Moreover, they said the findings may also boost use of the extract itself, particularly in its native eastern Asia.

吴向阳

看不懂。

全民皆学英语，学什么都要考英语，但是在英国一个种菜的农民的说英语，可能比中国的英语教授还要流利。

[ Last edited by 吴向阳 on 2006/6/13 at 11:43 ]