Can diabetes be rocked away?
A study published in the journal Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology has suggested that “We Will Rock You” by Queen could potentially help treat diabetes.
Scientists have engineered a cell that can release the hormone insulin in response to music — with the hope that these cells can eventually be implanted into those with diabetes as a replacement to their regular injections.
Insulin is an essential hormone produced by the pancreas that helps the body turn food into energy and control blood sugar levels.
For diabetes patients, the body doesn’t produce enough insulin and/or it doesn’t use the insulin correctly. When this happens, too much sugar stays in the bloodstream, which can eventually lead to serious health problems such as heart disease, vision loss or kidney disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers played the Queen hit during tests on mice, showing that the cells released almost 70% of their insulin within five minutes and all of it within 15 minutes — a similar rate to the natural release from pancreatic cells.
About 5-10% of people with diabetes have type 1, which is thought to be caused by an autoimmune reaction that prevents the body from making insulin and thus regulating blood sugar levels. Diabetes patients with type 1 need to take insulin daily, while type 2 patients, who make up 90-95% of the diabetes population, develop the disease later in life and may not require regular injections until it’s progressed, according to the CDC.
With the hope of finding a way to manage diabetes without regular injections, the scientists at ETH Zurich in Switzerland engineered implantable insulin-producing cells that patients can control outside the body so they can regulate when the hormone is released.
Human pancreatic beta cells, which make and release insulin, were genetically modified in a lab to respond to sound waves. Channels on the surface of the cells allow calcium particles that are circulating in the blood into the cell, and the cell releases insulin in response.
The cells needed four hours to “refill” with insulin — an activity that researchers said “would match the typical needs of people with diabetes consuming three meals a day.”
Researchers put the modified cells into a capsule made from material meant for human implantation and put it into diabetic mice.
Scientists played a variety of songs at different sound levels to test the insulin release in the cells. Classical and guitar music were somewhat provoking, while environmental sounds such as lawnmowers, as well as speech, barely moved the needle
However, Queen’s “We Will Rock You” at a volume of 85 decibels — as loud as a food blender — prompted the strongest insulin release.
Meanwhile, the mice without the implant still had high blood sugar. Blood sugar levels also remained high when the music was played too far away.
Plans are now being made to conduct similar studies with human subjects, researchers said.
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