WIKIMEDIA, TONY HISGETTIn people with type 1 diabetes, an incurable disease diagnosed early in life, the pancreas is deficient in producing insulin. There's been some idea that stress responses from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in pancreatic beta cells are involved, particularly the unfolded protein response. In Science Translational Medicine this week (November 13), scientists show that tamping down the ER stress response with a compound found in bear bile can slow the development of type 1 diabetes in mice.
“The study is exciting because it suggests that improving ER function before the onset of disease could reduce [type 1 diabetes] incidence,” said lead author Feyza Engin, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, in a press release.
The compound, tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA), has been used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a variety of ailments, and it was often sourced from the bile of bears. “The gallbladder of the bear was one of the most valuable voodoo medicines that people used, especially in China,” Gokhan Hotamisligil, a geneticist at Harvard University School of Public Health and a co-author of the study, told National Geographic. “It almost made the black bear extinct [in China].” Fortunately, if Hotamisligil's idea of using it ...
