Current Diabetes Reviews - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2009

Diabetes, characterized by chronic hyperglycemia, has reached serious epidemic proportions. It is also not infrequent to find increased incidence of liver injury in diabetics and hyperglycemia plays an important role in promoting liver injury through several mechanisms. The following review identifies the pathways through which hyperglycemia causes changes in liver of various animal models and liver cell culture models, and Read More

Development of therapeutic measures to reduce the risk of potentially fatal episodes of hypoglycaemia and thus to achieve the full benefits of intensive insulin therapy in diabetic patients requires a complete understanding of the multifactorial mechanisms for repeated hypoglycaemia-induced blunting of the sympatho-adrenal response (BSAR). After critical analysis of the hypotheses, this review paper suggests a heuris Read More

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is a gut hormone that plays an important role in regulating glucose homeostasis by both its pancreatic and extrapancreatic activity. Defects of GLP-1 characterize type 2 diabetes as a primary or perhaps consequent phenomenon, resulting in inappropriately low insulin secretion after oral ingestion of nutrients. The discovery that cleavage by the ubiquitous enzyme dipeptidyl pe Read More

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by hyperglycemia caused by defective insulin secretion, resistance to insulin action, or a combination of both. DM has reached epidemic proportions in the US and more recently worldwide. The morbidity and mortality associated with diabetes is anticipated to account for a substantial proportion of health care expenditures. Although there are several dr Read More

Diabetes patients are known to have a worse quality of life than individuals without diabetes. They also have an increased risk for depressive symptoms, which may have an additional negative effect on their quality of life. This systematic review summarizes the current knowledge on the association between depressive symptoms and quality of life in individuals with diabetes. A systematic literature search using MEDLINE, Read More

The role of altered mitochondria function has recently emerged as an important mechanism for the development of diabetic complications. Altered mitochondria function has also been implicated in the ageing process, defective insulin secretion, hypertension, arteriosclerosis, ischemia-reperfusion injury and apoptosis. Normally, the mitochondria are associated with ATP production using primarily pyruvate as the substra Read More

We review the mechanisms leading to hyperglycaemic damage and draw functional extrapolations aiming to an improved management of surgical complications, which are common among diabetic patients.