Diabetes Research at the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies

Diabetes

The Problem

Drs. Eva Feldman & Stephanie Eid

Diabetes is a global epidemic and public health burden. Almost 537 million adults are living with diabetes worldwide, a number projected to increase to 784 million by 2045. In the United States, 1 in every 10 adults have diabetes, and over 20% of those don’t even know they have it.

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) can develop at any age, but most frequently is diagnosed in adolescents and children. In T1D, the pancreas loses the cells that make insulin, the glucose regulating biomolecule.
Type 2 diabetes (T2D), the more common form, accounts for around 95% of diabetes cases and is diagnosed most frequently in adults. In T2D, the body develops insulin resistance and can no longer regulate glucose. Unfortunately, controlling blood glucose alone is not sufficient to slow or reverse damage to complication-prone tissues, including peripheral nerves.

Obesity and T2D are closely associated with each other. More than 90% of people with T2D are overweight. Additionally, obesity and prediabetes often lead to T2D. Complications of obesity, T1D, and T2D include nerve, eye, kidney, and cardiovascular damage. These complications can eventually lead to significant disability and possibly death.

Diabetes was the 7^th leading cause of death in adults in 2019 (before COVID).
Diabetes is the #1 cause of kidney failure and adult blindness.

WATCH | Facts, Fun & Fitness for WDD 2021

Our research focuses on how obesity and T2D damage the nervous system—particularly, we study damage to peripheral nerves in the arms and legs, which leads to neuropathy, as well as damage to the brain, leading to cognitive decline.

Michigan Peripheral Neuropathy Clinic

"At least half of the 30 million Americans with diabetes have neuropathy. It’s a very common, prevalent problem in a very common, prevalent disease. Additionally, about 30% of the 84 million Americans with prediabetes have neuropathy." (in 2020)

Dr. Eva Feldman | U.S. News & World Report

READ I Qs to Ask Your Doctor About Nerve Pain

Our Current Initiatives

NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies lab image of a skin neurons from a diabetes mouse study that was selected for Disease Models & Mechanisms November 2021 Cover

Skin neurons from a diabetic neuropathy study

Complete our ongoing human clinical study investigating if surgical weight loss and/or exercise (high-intensity interval training) can prevent or reverse nerve injury. If successful, this would be the first study demonstrating the beneficial effects of exercise and/or bariatric surgery on peripheral neuropathy in people. Those interested in applying to be part of the study can find information HERE.
Understand why certain children and adolescents with obesity and prediabetes develop neuropathy.
Develop therapeutic approaches to block pathways of oxidant overproduction that cause oxidative stress, and in turn neuropathy.
Identify further risk factors connected with neuropathy and cognitive decline associated with diabetes.
Examine the role of bacteria that inhabit the gut, also called the microbiome, in neuropathy development and progression.
Define the mechanisms by which axons (the elongated part of nerves) and their supporting cells, also called Schwann cells, interact under normal and diabetic conditions.

Our Diabetes News

May 13, 2024

Neuropathy Research Covered by U.S. News and Many More

Research by Andrea and Lawrence A. Wolfe Research Professor Melissa Elafros, M.D., Ph.D., found that though it is a widespread disorder, neuropathy often goes undiagnosed, new research shows, leaving many people at risk of falls, infection, and even amputation.