Inside the cells. Researching flaws in the body's 'power stations'.

摘要

Diabetes has a straightforward definition. Whether it's caused by the body's cells not being sensitive enough to insulin or by the pancreas not producing enough insulin in the first place, diabetes is about having too much glucose, a kind of sugar, in the blood. That means the search for a cure often focuses on shifting glucose from the bloodstream into the cells. But Vladimir Ritov, a biochemist at the University of Pittsburgh, thinks that in some cases that single-minded focus may be problematic. In the past decade, he has studied what happens when glucose is processed in the cells of people with type 2 diabetes. It turns out that pushing glucose into diabetic cells may come at a cost.