Female Hormone May Prevent Type 1 Diabetes

Research with mice shows estradiol protects cells that produce insulin

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

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WEDNESDAY, June 7 (HealthDay News) -- New animal research suggests that a naturally produced estrogen hormone known as estradiol might help protect against diabetes by preventing the death of pancreatic cells critical to the production of insulin.

The findings are based on work with mice and have not yet been tried in a human trial.

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"This is the first study that shows that the female hormone estrodial is important to ensuring pancreatic beta-cell survival in both females and males," said study co-author Dr. Franck Mauvais-Jarvis. He is an assistant professor with the department of molecular and cellular biology and the department of medicine in the division of diabetes, endocrinology & metabolism at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Almost 21 million Americans are currently living with diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Most people with diabetes have what's known as the type 2 form of the disease, which results from the body's inability to properly use the naturally produced hormone insulin to regulate blood sugar levels by processing sugars into energy.

However, between 5 percent and 10 percent of diabetics have a version of the disease known as type 1 diabetes, in which the body doesn't produce any insulin.

Focusing on type 1 diabetes, Mauvais-Jarvis and his colleagues noted that the body's inability to produce insulin is driven by the death of insulin-producing pancreatic beta-cells.

In an attempt to isolate estradiol's potential impact on pancreatic beta-cell destruction, the researchers worked with both male and female mice that were either unable to produce estradiol, lacked an estrogen receptor needed for normal estradiol functioning, or were given a compound that prevented the estrogen receptors from working.

Reporting in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said that both genders of mice experienced severe beta-cell death while demonstrating dramatically lower-than-normal levels of insulin production -- leading to the onset of type 1 diabetes.

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