Research into diabetes at a cellular level is continuous and ongoing in institutes, universities and research centers throughout the world. This has led to groundbreaking discoveries of how diabetes can be treated or even cured by stem cell replacement. However, just as important is investigating the ways in which diabetes affects the body. Recent research by an expert at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Centre promises to reveal new secrets of how diabetes affects the body.
An expert in charge of the study, together with other researchers in Italy and Hungary, has found that cells have a memory of the stress caused by raised levels of glucose. He “in addition to understanding what causes changes in insulin and glucose in the diabetic patient, we have to understand how high glucose damages normal tissue. If we can better understand it, we can help prevent the damage this (diabetes) causes the patient.”
The study used cells grown in petri dishes and exposed them to high levels of glucose before normalizing the blood sugar levels. The cells were found to retain the stress levels even when the glucose levels had been returned to normal. The study also involved organs affected by diabetes, such as the eye and kidney, and examined what caused this cell memory and how it could be disrupted through the use of antioxidants. Antioxidant therapy was found to bring advantages.

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