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According to a New Study
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 6, 2007
A new study at Columbia has shown the human skeleton to be part of the endocrine system, according to an article published in the Aug. 10 issue of Cell. While bones were previously thought to serve only a structural function, Gerard Karsenty, M.D., Ph.D., and chair of the genetics and development department at the Columbia University Medical School, has found them to serve a more dynamic role.
The research, supported by organizations including the National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association, demonstrates that bones secrete a hormone called osteocalcin, which aids the pancreas in producing insulin. The hormone also stimulates fat cells to release another hormone called adiponectin which improves sensitivity to insulin. The skeleton is therefore indispensable to regulation of energy homeostasis, according to the researchers.
The results of their study, which monitored osteocalcin levels in rats on varying feeding plans, shows that osteocalcin helps to regulate body glucose levels by increasing the secretion and sensitivity of insulin concurrently. Without osteocalcin, rising levels of insulin secretion are naturally accompanied by decreasing sensitivity.
Decreased levels of osteocalcin in rats were shown to affect weight gain and the onset of type II diabetes, whereas rats with healthy levels of the hormone were not found to experience such negative symptoms, even when fed a high-fat diet.
This research could be crucial in the ongoing hunt for a cure to type II diabetes. Columbia researchers hope to show that elevating osteocalcin levels could help to remedy low insulin levels in human diabetics, a hypothesis which they have already supported with the animal testing.
Researchers postulate that the purpose of having hormones located in the skeleton may be the result of “tinkering during evolution” as the human population underwent long periods of food deprivation. They also hypothesize that further research will reveal the bone structure to be home to many more vital hormones involved in the human endocrine system.
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I developed diabetes from the drug risperdal; treatment for a schizoaffective disorder that I suffered from. I wrote some philosophical pieces on calcium metabolism and diabetes in the comment sections of the category risperidone, (comments on different articles dealing with risperidone), found on the web site Counselling Resource. I gave more precise instructions on how to get to these commentaries on a comment of mine found in the web site "Diabetes TOpix" On an Sept 2007 article dealing with KATP from Swedish researchers; instructions were listed in a comment on this article, the article found between September 10- September 17, 2007, such article found under their "Forum" category listed with their current articles.
Calcium and Vitamin D supplementation, written in a 2007 study by Anastassios Pittas, such supplementation could actually halt progression to diabetes II in the glucose intolerant. Glucose levels and insulin sensitivity were affected by these two vitamins and normal glycemia evidently could be maintained with the supplementation regime the researchers wrote about. A September 7, 2007 article from Science Daily "When Does Obese not lead to Diabetes? When mice Lack Osteopontin" relates some very interesting information on how insulin resistance arises from "bone originated" directed macrophage infiltration of obese fat tissue.Osteopontin being the gene responsible for this previous mentioned phenomena of macrophage maintained inflammatory conditions. Wikipedia additionally notes ostepontin is synthesized by the vitamin D stimulated entity calcitrol. Their entry osteopontin carries more detailed info. on this point. So the bone area is turning out to be a major area for diabetes development and more research certainly in the future could reveal very rich areas for diabetic dynamics to originate from and transact with other hormonal and endocrinological systems. Just considering five years ago, many diabetologists would assign at best, a highly dubious assertion of significance ,to bone originated processes for having any important impact for diabetes emergence to arise from. That evidently is all changing with these disocveries including the one your article details above.
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