DOC News August 1, 2007
Volume 4 Number 8 p. 12
© 2007 American Diabetes Association
Type 2 Diabetes Linked to Programmed Cell Death
Bruce Goldfarb
Type 2 diabetes appears to be involved in programmed cell death, according
to research presented at the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society, held
June 2–5 in Toronto.
People with long-standing type 2 diabetes show more telomeric shortening
than those who were recently diagnosed or don't have the disease, the research
suggests.
Telomeres, a shoelace tip-like sequence at the ends of chromosomes,
normally shorten with age. Telomere shortening triggers apoptosis, or normal
programmed cell death.
In the study, Froylan Albarran-Tamayo, MD, of Instituto de Investigationes
de Medicas de Guanajuato, in Mexico, and colleagues compared telomere length
in 10 men diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 
10 years previously, 10 men
diagnosed <1 year earlier, and 10 nondiabetic men. Also measured were
markers of inflammation including adiponectin, tumor necrosis factor alpha,
and interleukin 6.
Investigators found significant telomeric shortening in participants with
long-term type 2 diabetes, compared with men in the other two groups. Those
with longer-duration diabetes also had significantly higher levels of
inflammatory markers, a finding "in agreement with the suggestion that
these factors have some influence accelerating telomeric shortening,"
the researchers note.
If, as has been postulated, telomere length is a predictor of survival,
patients with long-term diabetes may have shortened life expectancy, the
researchers suggest.
They also suggest treatment of type 2 diabetes should include strategies to
reduce or avoid peroxidation and inflammation, both of which are linked to
chronic disease and telomere shortening. 
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