Itongadol.- For some time, doctors and neuroscientists have suggested that people with diabetes are more likely to develop neurodegenerative diseases than non-diabetic individuals, but were unable to prove their hypothesis. Now Israeli scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University in the Negev have found a definite link between Type II diabetes and the propensity for developing Parkinson’s disease.
Over a period of three years, Dr. Yifat Miller and her post-doctoral student Yoav Atsmon-Raz attempted to explain how Type II diabetes, also known as late onset diabetes, could affect the body in a way that would make it more susceptible to developing neurodegenerative disease. While things like stroke, heart attack, blindness and kidney disease are known complications associated with Type II diabetes, it has yet to be confirmed that insulin deficiency scientifically raises the risk of contracting neurodegenerative disease. Now Miller’s breakthrough discovery may once and for all make sense of the deadly link between diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases.
The ‘clumping’ connection
The key component to discovering the missing link between the diseases was a new observation, made by Miller and Atsmon-Raz, regarding Parkinson’s disease. Examining the atomic structure of the brain protein fragment non-amyloid beta component (NAC), the team discovered for the first time that Parkinson’s disease is triggered when NAC clumps together. With knowledge that similar clumping action caused by a hormone called amylin triggers Type II diabetes in the pancreas, Miller’s team set out to find the clumping connection.
Basing their research on previous studies that showed amylin is also found in the brain and is related to Alzheimer’s disease when it clumps together, Miller discovered that this same hormone could cause Parkinson’s in patients with diabetes. “Our findings led us to the hypothesis that if amylin is located in the brain it can also interact with other proteins and peptides in the brain,” Miller tells ISRAEL21c.
From here, Miller and her team observed how NAC, which is part of a protein called alpha-synuclein, led to the death of neurons at an atomic level. By mapping the atomic structure of NAC and showing how it aggregates itself throughout the brain, Miller revealed for the first time the clumping mechanism in the brain that leads to Parkinson’s disease. All that was left was for her and her team to show that the presence of amylin in the brain and pancreas, and its clumping habits, could be the explanation for why Type II diabetics are at higher risk of contracting neurodegenerative diseases.