WIKIMEDIA, BCARVER1Update (December 29, 2016): This study has been retracted.
A study published in Cell last year offered evidence that a hormone called betatrophin, or Angiopoietin-like protein 8 (ANGPTL8), could ramp up pancreatic β cell proliferation in a mouse model of insulin resistance. The results made quite a splash; the study’s authors—led by Doug Melton at Harvard University—even wrote that betatrophin treatment “could augment or replace insulin injections by increasing the number of endogenous insulin-producing cells in diabetics.”
But a follow-up study by an independent group of researchers found that the hormone is not required for β cell function or growth. “The lack of expansion of the beta cell area could theoretically be due to simultaneous increases in replication and apoptosis frequencies. However, even if this were the case, it would not change our observation ...
