diabetes

Vanderbilt Diabetes Day, an annual research symposium, this year featured talks by nationally known researchers and by winners of the Diabetes Scholar awards.

Vanderbilt University is part of a national effort to improve diabetes treatment by developing strategies for proliferating, regenerating and improving the function of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreatic islets.

Vanderbilt University researchers are closer to understanding the link between obesity, chronic inflammation and type 2 diabetes.

A person’s mitochondrial gene “signature” could predict risk for diabetic retinopathy and guide early intervention strategies.

Up to 60 percent of patients who receive a stem cell transplant using cells from another donor will develop post-transplant diabetes mellitus, which can increase the rate of complications and death after the procedure.

Vanderbilt investigators have demonstrated in two studies that metformin-based treatments delay the onset and progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) compared with other treatments for diabetes.

In an observational study by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, adults with type 2 diabetes who take insulin in addition to the recommended first-line drug therapy, metformin, had a 30 percent higher risk of heart attack, stroke or death when compared to similar patients who instead augment their metformin regimen with a sulfonylurea.