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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 However, Mauvais-Jarvis and his team found that after administering targeted doses of estradiol, the pancreatic beta-cells were "rescued" from death, insulin production resumed, and diabetes was averted.
The researchers concluded that -- at least in mice -- estradiol appears to offer protection against the chain of events that lead to type 1 diabetes.
Mauvais-Jarvis was cautiously optimistic that the work with mice might one day translate into a benefit for humans at risk for diabetes.
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"One has to be cautious, because this study has been performed in mice, and although the mouse is the best available model to study human diseases, mice are not humans," he said.
Still, Mauvais-Jarvis said the study indicates that estradiol may offer a new clinical route for the prevention of diabetes in women and men.
"That's a novel paradigm," he said. "Thirty years ago, it was believed that sex hormones were involved only in reproduction and sexual behavior. But in the last 10 years, there has been a kind of challenge to this concept, and we have discovered novel functions regarding estrodial -- such as the prevention of beta-cell death -- that have been revealed to be true for both sexes."
Mauvais-Jarvis stressed, however, that offering patients estrogen-replacement therapy wasn't an option, given recent findings that such treatment appears to elevate the risk of breast cancer in women.
Rather, he suggested that "the future is try to dissect the good and the bad uses of estrodial," in an effort to develop medicines that could prevent beta-cell deaths and diabetes without harmful side effects.
Dr. Robert Rizza, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, and president of the American Diabetes Association, called the new findings "intriguing."
"There have been various studies that have shown that estrogen may lower the risk for developing diabetes, and this study shows why this might be the case," he sad. "This could be a mechanism."
"It may or may not be true for humans," Rizza added. "But it will teach us more about how estrogen works. And if it turns out to be the case, this could be used for other novel therapies to prevent diabetes."
More information
For more on diabetes prevention, visit the American Diabetes Association (www.diabetes.org ).
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