Category: Health and Medicine

An extract of the gardenia fruit, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine, could provide a new lead in the search for drugs to treat the symptoms of type 2 diabetes. The extract contains a chemical that apparently reverses some of the pancreatic dysfunction that underlies the disease, according to researchers writing in the June 7 issue of Cell Metabolism.

The chemical in question is genipin. This compound was previously found to cross-link proteins, but it has also now been shown to inhibit the enzyme uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) through another mechanism. In both animals and humans, high concentrations of UCP2 appear to inhibit insulin secretion from the pancreas and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

“We think the increase in UCP2 activity is an important component of the pathogenesis of diabetes,” said Bradford Lowell of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. “Our goal therefore was to discover a UCP2 inhibitor capable of working in intact cells, as such an inhibitor could theoretically represent a lead compound for agents aimed at improving beta cell function in type 2 diabetes.”

Study coauthor Chen-Yu Zhang’s familiarity with traditional Chinese medicine led the team to consider the extract of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis fruits. Pancreas cells taken from normal mice secreted insulin when treated with the extract, they found, whereas the cells of mice lacking UCP2 did not. The results suggested that the extract worked through its effects on the UCP2 enzyme.

“When I first saw the results, I was in disbelief,” Lowell said. “I didn’t think we could ever be that lucky.” However, blinded repetition of the initial experiments confirmed the results every time, he said.

Through a series of chemical analyses, the researchers then zeroed in on genipin as the active compound. Genipin, like the extract, stimulated insulin secretion in control but not UCP2-deficient pancreas cells.

They further found that acute addition of genipin to isolated pancreatic tissue reversed high glucose- and obesity-induced dysfunction of insulin-producing beta cells. A derivative of genipin that lacked the chemical’s cross-linking activity continued to inhibit UCP2, they reported.

That’s a good sign for the therapeutic potential of genipin-related compounds, according to Lowell, as such indiscriminate cross-linking would likely have adverse effects. However, further work will need to examine whether inhibition of UCP2 itself might also have some negative consequences.

The morning after the night before often gets a kickstart with a steaming mug of Java, but drinking coffee could be helping those who partake of alcoholic beverages more than was previously thought, at least according to research published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine. According to researchers in California, drinking coffee may have a preventative effect on developing the alcoholic liver disease cirrhosis.

Cirrhosis progressively destroys healthy liver tissue and replaces it with scar tissue. Viruses such as hepatitis C can cause cirrhosis, but long-term, heavy alcohol use is the most common cause of the disease in developed countries. Most drinkers, however, never develop cirrhosis, thankfully, because other factors such as genetics, diet and nutrition, smoking and the interaction of alcohol with other toxins that damage the liver are involved.

Arthur Klatsky and colleagues at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, in Oakland, have analyzed data from 125,580 individuals (55,247 men and 70,333 women) who did not report liver disease when they had baseline examinations, between 1978 and 1985. Participants filled out a questionnaire to provide information about how much alcohol, coffee and tea they drank per day during the past year. Some of the individuals also had their blood tested for levels of certain liver enzymes; the enzymes are released into the bloodstream when the liver is diseased or damaged.

By the end of 2001, 330 participants had been diagnosed with cirrhosis, including 199 with alcoholic cirrhosis. For each cup of coffee they drank per day, participants were 22 percent less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis.

The researchers don’t suggest that physicians prescribe coffee to prevent alcoholic cirrhosis, coffee brings its own problems, after all, including detrimental effects on the cardiovascular system. “Even if coffee is protective, the primary approach to reduction of alcoholic cirrhosis is avoidance or cessation of heavy alcohol drinking,” says Klatsky. I assume that the research did not investigate whether decaf has a beneficial effect. Either way, it’s a pointless morning-after drink anyway, you’re probably better off going for green tea, or a herbal infusion as an alternative to the hair of the dog, just make sure you use it to wash down a nice fry up of sausage, eggs, and tomatoes.

Fructose is a sugar, it’s the sugar associated with fruit and honey in fact and has in the past been given the green light as being a more beneficial source of sugar than the processed sucrose we get in kilo bags from the supermarkets. However, research earlier this year suggested that fructose could be harmful to health because it makes you feel less sated by a meal containing high levels of this sugar than you would otherwise feel. Since fructose is added to lots of processed foods, this, the research suggests, might be yet another factor underpinning the nation’s health and leading to weight problems and metabolic syndrome.

I hadn’t seen this particular piece of research until a Sciencebase reader alerted me to it today, but it got me thinking. If fructose makes you feel less “full” than you actually are then this finding perhaps conflicts with the urgings of health authorities that we should eat more fruit and use natural sugars, such as honey. It would also explain how my wife can eat half a dozen pieces of fruit at a sitting without ever feeling full…

The original research was published in Nature Clinical Practice: Nephrology and a news write-up on the subject can be found here

A fellow “Digger” dugg this article I posted on Reactive Reports issue 47 in which I discussed: Hangover Culprit Found. Of course, the headline was slightly misleading as was the opening paragraph which alluded to acetaldehyde being the cause of hangovers. This was pointed out to me by no less than a few of the other 470+ Digg members who voted the article to the front page of that site.

Of course, it is well known that acetaldehyde (ethanal) is an ethanol metabolite (made when the liver goes from Oooooh, to Aaaaah) and is itself toxic and considered to be one of the leading causes of those awful morning after symptoms. However, the actual research I discussed focused on specific aspects of the genetics of some East Asians who suffer particularly bad hangovers. You can read all about it in Issue 47 of Reactive Reports.