Renken faces three counts of felony theft by swindle. If found guilty of the first charge, Renken could end up in jail for 10 years and face a fine of up to $20,000. The other two counts carry up to five years behind bars and a $10,000 fine. 

The couple claims Renken said he was working with a team of doctors in Germany would use laser beams to zap toxins in the body and work to realign some of the body’s functions. He said the German doctors would be able to heal him remotely by examining radio frequencies bouncing off the man and adjust the frequencies in order to cure his diabetes.

Last week Renken allegedly told the couple the man was cured of all his ailments, including his diabetes, and that he could stop taking his medication. At that point he told the woman that scans of her body revealed she was stricken with cancer, had blocked arteries and was in mortal danger. He offered to cure her for only $1,175. The couple did not pay.  

The article did not specify whether the man was suffering from Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes.

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Georgetown University Medical Center researchers say that men with Type 1 diabetes may be able to use stem cells found in their own testicular tissue to grow new insulin-producing beta cells. The laboratory and animal study did not employ any extra genes which are used to instruct the stem cells what to turn into.

None of the cells have produce enough insulin to cure diabetes in humans, but the researchers say they know the cells have the potential to do so and that they know how to increase their effectiveness.

For the study, researchers took SSCs, which are precursors to sperm cells, from deceased human organ donors. They then transplanted the cells into the back of mice that were considered immune deficient. The mice saw decrease blood sugar levels for about a week.

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Diabecell is made of pig islets that are encapsulated and implanted in the abdomen of patients with Type 1 diabetes. This device helps patients self-regulate insulin secretion throughout the body. Clinical trials of the porcine cell implant therapy began in the country in 2007 where eight patients with Type 1 diabetes each received between one and three Diabecell implants and experienced no major problems due to the device. After a year, a blood test revealed that none of the patients showed any signs of diseases transmitted between pigs and humans. It also reduced the instances of hypoglycemia.

Six of the patients showed “long-term” improvement in blood sugar levels as measured by A1C test scores. They also required fewer insulin injections, and two required none at all for about eight months.

Living Cell Technologies is currently in Phase II trials New Zealand and plans to start Phase III trials next year.

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The companies pulled the plug in the drug because it did not meet its primary goal. The companies said that there were no unanticipated safety issues, but that safety monitoring among trial participants is warranted.

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People with pre diabetes begin to show signs of insulin resistance.

Researchers examined 18 obese men with pre diabetes between the ages of 21 and 65 years old. Researchers cleansed the obese men’s bowels and then transplanted either stool from thin male donors or the men’s own feces into their bowels. They found the men given the thin men’s stool showed improved insulin sensitivity. However, unlike in animal studies, they did not experience weight loss.

The use of bacteria in the gut to treat diabetes is a new line of research. Because of the small size of the study group, the findings are only considered suggestive and not conclusive. However, it could potentially lead to new lines of treatment.

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Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body mistakenly attacks insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, destroying them and making it much more difficult for people with the disease to control their blood sugar levels.  

The new kind of transplant involves a small patch-like device, made of seaweed and containing islet cells, that is placed on the pancreas. The thin patch, which looks kind of like a flap of skin, is made of a semi-permeable membrane that allows small substances, such as glucose, water, certain drugs, and salt to pass through, but blocks larger anti-bodies. The size of the pores in the patch can be adjusted chemically in order to keep the transplanted cells alive.

This type of transplant is dramatically different then current islet cell transplants that have been performed on more than 2,000 people around the world. Those surgeries require immunosuppressant drugs to prevent the immune system from attacking and killing the transplanted islets much the same way  the body destroys its own cells, causing diabetes. Researchers are currently testing the patch on animals and hope to begin human trials within three years.

However, even if the patch proves successful, doctors still would face another big hurdle: a lack of islet cell donors. That’s why researchers are also working to see if they can convert stem cells into islet cells.

Researchers also say this technique may be applicable to Type 2 diabetes down the line.

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The 12 winners of The Challenge contest, which was launched in February, each receive a $2,500 prize. The plan is to tap the Harvard research community to submit proposals that further some of the winning submissions.

The winning submissions include:

* ‘The Diabetes Triangle’. This submission is  a classification system that seeks to better identify the types of diabetes beyond just Type 1 and Type 2. The idea was submitted by someone with an uncommon for of the disease. The Diabetes Triangle, an easy to use scale, would help grade the type of diabetes in a much more “fine-grained, personalized way.” This would then help doctors take a more personal approach to understanding and treating the disease in each patient.  

* ‘Lipid Autoreactivity in Type 1 Diabetes’.  Much about the underlying chemistry behind the development of Type 1 diabetes is unknown. Harvard College undergrad Megan Blewett, a chemistry major, proposed studying how the immune system interacts with lipids in order to lead to possible new treatments.

*‘Synergistic System Targeting for Type I Diabetes’. This submission suggested approaching diabetes management from several angles at the same time. This proposal calls for increased understanding of how various parts of the immune system impact the pancreas. This, in turn, could lead to better treatments that can target the different parts of the immune system at the same time.

*‘A Quiet Role for Platelets and Eosinophils in Pathogenesis of Type 1 Diabetes?‘. This submission calls for focusing on various parts of the immune system, not just the T-Cells, which are the primary focus of most research. Learning more about whether cells and proteins, which play a role in the body’s response to allergies, may also be involved in the development of diabetes, could be an important line of research.

*‘In depth analysis of T-cell repertoire during the development of type 1 diabetes in pancreatic islet infiltrating and peripheral CD4 T cells’. This submission from an endocrinologist proposed utilizing T-cells in the blood in order to see what is actually going on inside the pancreas of patients with diabetes. Better understanding could lead to new treatments and a better assessment of whether current treatments are working well.
are working.

* ‘A cell-electronic approach to insulin therapy’. A submission by a post doctoral fellow at Harvard, proposed linking pancreatic beta cells to an electronic insulin pump.

*‘Integral treatment of type 1 diabetes using smart liposomes’. Submitted by a doctor, this proposal suggests using “smart liposomes”, or microscopic spheres that can deliver proteins to lessen the autoimmune assault on beta cells in patients with Type 1 diabetes. This will allow the delivery of drugs directly to the pancreas, potentially making them more effective.

*‘Family-based Association Studies to Identify Gene-Environment Interaction and Genomic Imprinting in Type 1 Diabetes‘. A biostatistician at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, hypothesizes that by taking a new look at genetic studies using improved statistical techniques, it may be possible to decipher the genetic versus environmental factors that lead to diabetes.

*‘Hunting for microbial genomes in type 1 diabetes by next-generation sequencing’. This submission echoes the belief that a germ of virus may be to blame for the development of diabetes. This submission from a team of researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and Yale School of Medicine says that viruses leave behind telltale clues and that probing for those clues may give a better understanding whether viruses and germs, do, in fact, play a role in the development of the disease.

*‘Post-Gastric Bypass Nesidioblastosis as a Model for Understanding Beta-Islet Cell Neogenesis’. This submission says its important to understand why beta cell undergo ‘an explosive period of growth in the wake of gastric bypass surgery?’ Many consider the surgery a cure for Type 2 diabetes. Understanding the changes in the body after the surgery could lead to new treatments and a possible cure.

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The subject of the study, they amyloid protein, has been on diabetes researchers’ radar for years, following research detecting amyloid deposits in pancreatic tissue of some type-2 diabetics, according to a BBC report.

The prevailing theory was that amyloid may be poisoning the cells, but the Trinity research suggests a more complicated process. When immune cells called macrophage come into contact with the amyloid, the study finds, it led to the release of proteins causing inflammation. The swelling then harms beta cells hosting insulin production.

The new theory should spark further study focused on the amyloid-inflammation mechanism and eventually treatments, the researchers say.

The study is published in the current edition of Nature Immunology.

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Their research, published in the current issue of Nature, analyzes a genome-wide association study, finding that a certain group of genes reacting in response to viral infections are present in both rats and humans, and are also associated with a vulnerability to type 1 diabetes.

Those findings support the hypothesis that type 1 diabetes is caused by an immune system response to a virus, though they do not conclusively prove it.

The network of genes identified presents a large number of targets for further testing, which is what will happen next, said Marie Nierras, a study co-author and director of research and scientific affairs for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

The researchers hope eventually to develop a drug based on the genetic target they discovered.

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Type 2 sufferers aged 55 to 81 were far likelier to have poor memory and slower, rigid cognitive processing if they also experienced high blood pressure, had difficulty walking or balancing, or felt that they were in bad health, according to the study.

The factors are not necessarily causes of the cognitive problems but could serve as useful signals alerting doctors that such problems are likely, the researchers say. Knowledge of the links could also encourage more people to manage their diabetes, they add.

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