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Hepatitis C a direct cause of diabetes
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection can
directly cause insulin resistance, which commonly leads to diabetes,
Japanese researchers have found.
HCV infection has been linked to type 2 diabetes, the authors explain,
but a definite cause-and-effect relationship has not been established.
To investigate, Dr. Kazuhiko Koike, and colleagues from University
of Tokyo, studied the development of diabetes using mice that had
been bred to carry the core gene of HCV.
Excessive insulin levels were apparent in the mice "as early
as 1 month old," the authors report in the medical journal
Gastroenterology. Insulin resistance was observed by the age of
2 months.
Administering of glucose to these mice led to only mild glucose
intolerance, but when they were fed a high-fat diet they developed
overt diabetes.
The authors conclude, "These results indicate a direct involvement
of HCV per se in the pathogenesis of diabetes in patients with HCV
infection and provide a molecular basis for insulin resistance in
such a condition."
This research "makes an important contribution to putting
the HCV-diabetes association on a mechanistic footing, thus elevating
it from a curious association to an important disease process,"
write Dr. Steven A. Weinman and Dr. L. Maria Belalcazar from University
of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, in a related editorial.
SOURCE: Gastroenterology, March 2004.
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