Diabetic Neuropathy News and Research

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Diabetic neuropathy is a peripheral nerve disorder caused by diabetes or poor blood sugar control. The most common types of diabetic neuropathy result in problems with sensation in the feet. It can develop slowly after many years of diabetes or may occur early in the disease. The symptoms are numbness, pain, or tingling in the feet or lower legs. The pain can be intense and require treatment to relieve the discomfort. The loss of sensation in the feet may also increase the possibility that foot injuries will go unnoticed and develop into ulcers or lesions that become infected. In some cases, diabetic neuropathy can be associated with difficulty walking and some weakness in the foot muscles. There are other types of diabetic-related neuropathies that affect specific parts of the body. For example, diabetic amyotrophy causes pain, weakness and wasting of the thigh muscles, or cranial nerve infarcts that may result in double vision, a drooping eyelid, or dizziness. Diabetes can also affect the autonomic nerves that control blood pressure, the digestive tract, bladder function, and sexual organs. Problems with the autonomic nerves may cause lightheadedness, indigestion, diarrhea or constipation, difficulty with bladder control, and impotence.

Nerve signaling pathway crucial to healing fractures, study shows

Sticks and stones may break one's bones, but healing them requires the production of a protein signal that stimulates the generation, growth and spread of vital nerve cells, or neurons, throughout the injured area.

5 Dec 2019

Could drinking a small amount of alcohol everyday be good for type 2 diabetes?

A new meta-analysis suggests that people with type 2 diabetes may benefit from light-to-moderate drinking, which could have a positive effect on blood glucose and fat metabolism.

18 Sep 2019

Study discovers origin of neurofibromas that develop throughout the skin of NF1 patients

A study published today in PLOS ONE discovered the origin of severely disfiguring masses of cells, called neurofibromas, that gradually develop throughout the skin of patients afflicted with Neurofibromatosis 1.

22 May 2019

Virginia Tech and UC San Diego researchers team up to develop nonopioid drug for chronic pain

Researchers from the Virginia Tech School of Neuroscience are teaming with the University of California San Diego and the U.S. National Institutes of Health to develop a drug -- now in its earliest stages -- that can treat certain types of chronic pain without the addictive consequences of opioids.

12 Dec 2018

Physician-scientists treat first patient in the U.S. with focused ultrasound for neuropathic leg pain

University of Maryland physician-scientists have treated the first patient in the United States with MRI-guided focused ultrasound for neuropathic leg pain as part of a pilot clinical trial.

30 Oct 2018

Weight loss drug reduces risk of diabetes in patients with pre-diabetes, finds study

At the 2018 Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, Brigham and Women's Hospital investigators from the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction Study Group presented diabetes-related findings from CAMELLIA-TIMI 61, a clinical trial of overweight and obese patients designed to test lorcaserin, a weight loss drug manufactured by the trial's sponsor, Eisai Inc.

4 Oct 2018

EC grants marketing authorization for ONPATTRO (patisiran) in Europe

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that the European Commission (EC) has granted marketing authorization for ONPATTRO (patisiran) for the treatment of hereditary transthyretin-mediated (hATTR) amyloidosis in adults with stage 1 or stage 2 polyneuropathy.

30 Aug 2018

Foot specialist explains steps to be taken to mitigate foot-related issues

Most Americans will have walked 75,000 miles by the time they reach the age of 50 – the equivalent of trekking around the Earth on the equator three times – an amazing feat.

23 Aug 2018

Alnylam’s patisiran receives positive opinion from CHMP for treating hATTR amyloidosis

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has adopted a Positive Opinion recommending marketing authorization of patisiran for the treatment of hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis in adults with stage 1 or stage 2 polyneuropathy.

27 Jul 2018

Non-opioid drug shows promise for treating pain by targeting receptors on immune cells

Faced with the epidemic of opioid addiction, researchers have been charged with finding other strategies to treat pain. Their efforts largely have focused on nerve cells that transmit pain signals to the spinal cord and brain.

6 Jul 2018

T1DM weakens autonomic reflex that regulates blood pressure during exercise, study finds

A new study finds that late-stage type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) weakens the autonomic reflex that regulates blood pressure during exercise, impairing circulation, nerve function and exercise tolerance. The study is published in the American Journal of Physiology-;Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

19 Oct 2017

Antidepressants used for chronic pain relief come with significant side effects

Chronic pain negatively impacts a person's quality of life. Often, over the counter pain medication, such as ibuprofen or aspirin, are ineffective in alleviating chronic pain. In these instances, a surprising choice is often a drug used to treat an entirely different condition - depression.

5 Sep 2017

Modified skin biopsy could provide faster and better diagnosis of inherited, fatal nerve disease

Johns Hopkins physicians report success in a small study of a modified skin biopsy that hastens the earlier diagnosis of an inherited and progressively fatal nerve disease and seems to offer a clearer view of the disorder's severity and progression.

11 Jul 2017

Study: Seal oil holds potential to help promote nerve regeneration in patients with Type 1 diabetes

A research team at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre in Toronto has published a paper that suggests seal oil has the potential to help promote nerve regeneration in patients with Type 1 diabetes.

13 Jun 2017

Study describes synthesis and biological evaluation of novel, effective ARIs

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is probably one of the oldest known diseases and the incidence has been increasing steadily all over the world. This metabolic disease is characterized by chronic hyperglycemia due to defect in insulin secretion and/or insulin action.

17 Apr 2017

Research helps elucidate mechanisms behind low-level laser therapy in treating neuropathic pain

Low-level laser therapy has been shown by recent studies to be a non-invasive and effective alternative for treating neuropathic pain, a chronic condition caused by nerve damage, spinal cord injury or diseases such as diabetes.

28 Mar 2017

Antidepressants and anti-seizure drugs can effectively treat diabetic nerve pain, research finds

A federal health agency has found certain antidepressants and anti-seizure drugs are among medications that effectively treat diabetic nerve pain.

25 Mar 2017

New position statement offers recommendations for physicians on prevention of diabetic neuropathy

An estimated 60 to 70 percent of people with diabetes develop some form of diabetic neuropathy, or the chronic nerve damage diabetes causes, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

31 Jan 2017

Person's ‘brain speed’ may matter more than other risk factors for geriatric falls

"Why does a 30-year-old hit their foot against the curb in the parking lot and take a half step and recover, whereas a 71-year-old falls and an 82-year-old falls awkwardly and fractures their hip?" asks James Richardson, M.D., professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Musculoskeletal Center.

21 Dec 2016

New dermatological treatment could potentially help prevent or reverse diabetic neuropathy

For the 25 percent of type-2 diabetes patients who suffer from numbness and extreme nerve pain in their feet, a new dermatological treatment being tested by Northwestern Medicine scientists could potentially help prevent and maybe even reverse the neuropathy.

13 Sep 2016