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A powder that contains concentrated extract from the vegetable could prove indispensable to people with type 2 diabetes. The extract reduced blood sugar levels by up to 10 per cent in people with the disease.

In 2009, Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco delivered a ninety minute lecture entitled “Sugar: The Bitter Truth”. It was posted on YouTube as part of the university’s medical education series. Then a funny thing happened. It went viral.

Biomedical engineers have created a biopolymer that can provide weeks of glucose control with a single injection. The new tool has the potential to replace daily or weekly insulin shots with bi-weekly or once-a-month treatments of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP1) for type 2 diabetes.

Recent epidemiological studies have confirmed that the sweeteners used in diet sodas and other lite drinks increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

A less strenuous form of exercise known as whole-body vibration (WBV) can mimic the muscle and bone health benefits of regular exercise in mice, according to a new study. WBV consists of a person sitting, standing or lying on a machine with a vibrating platform. When the machine vibrates, it transmits energy to the body, and muscles contract and relax multiple times during each second.

Globally, every 30 seconds a diabetic has a limb amputated because of a non-healing wound. A molecule produced by a Thai liver parasite could be the solution to those non-healing wounds -- and scientists are now able to produce a version of the molecule on a large enough scale to make it available for laboratory tests and eventually clinical trials

Sleeping less than six hours was associated with higher risk of death in people with metabolic syndrome, a cluster of several heart disease and diabetes risk factors. This effect was particularly strong in those with elevated blood pressure or poor glucose metabolism.

Scientists from the Gothenburg and Girona universities found that the treatment of type 2 diabetes with metformin is changing the composition and characteristics of the intestinal microbiome. This has a significant auxiliary effect in therapy, establishing a system of regulation of the level of sugar and glycosylated hemoglobin in the blood.

Scientists are exploring a central component in glucose regulation. Their findings shed new light on the structure of the glucagon receptor, a highly promising target for diabetes drug development.

The diabetic volunteer continued to produce insulin one year after she received a transplant of abdominal islet cells.