Diabetes is a group of diseases characterized by high levels of blood sugar for an extended period. Despite newer and effective therapy, current treatment is riddled with fundamental challenges. To overcome the adverse effects of existing drugs, regenerative medicine has emerged as an essential treatment, for which tissue engineering may serve as a foundation for the repair of pancreatic cells secreting insulin. Different polymeric scaffolds have been explored for pancreatic tissue engineering. In the current study, a continuation of our preceding work we attempt to test the role of previously synthesized agarose-chitosan coated silver nanocomposite scaffold (AG-CHNp) for the long-term growth of pancreatic cells. Pancreatic cells were isolated from BALB/c mice and were characterized by dithizone (DTZ) staining, real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), western blotting, and flow cytometry for characteristic pancreatic markers. The isolated population of cells was grown on scaffolds and its effectiveness towards insulin secretion was studied. The isolated population was found to be positive for glucagon, PDX-1 and Pax-4, while a 200-fold change transcript level of insulin was observed. The cells upon seeding on the scaffolds exhibited sustained growth and insulin secretion as confirmed by western blotting. Overall, the study demonstrates the suitability and application of AG-CHNp for pancreatic tissue engineering.

Background: This study aimed to determine long-term effect of intensive insulin therapy on prevention, progression, and development of chronic diabetes complications, both micro and macrovascular events. This study also aimed to evaluate long-term sustainability of glycemic control of patients on intensive insulin treatment. Methods: A retrospective review of adult type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients on intensive insulin therapy for ≥7 years. Demographic data, co-morbidities, body mass index (BMI), hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), hospitalization were collated. Majority received intensive insulin therapy with combination of premixed 70/30 given two times a day and fast short acting analogue given premeal three times a day, with the addition of glargine or degludec once a day in some. Results: Among 76 patients, 62% were males and 38% were females. Mean age at diagnosis and last visit were 53 and 65 years, respectively. At time of diagnosis, patient had the following co-morbidities: hypertension (32%), dyslipidemia (13%), non-dialyzable chronic kidney disease (CKD) (4%), thyroid disease (1%), pulmonary tuberculosis (1%). In terms of long-term complications, event rates during follow up period are as follows: 0.001 per person-year for acute coronary event; 0.002 per person-year for CKD needing dialysis, 0.009 per person-year for cerebrovascular accident. There were no blindness and amputation observed. There is a statistical difference between HbA1c levels at time of diagnosis (8.53 ± 1.86) and last follow up (7.83 ± 1.71) (P = 0.00). After a median follow up of 12 years (7–22 years), glycemic control was sustained with an HbA1c of ≤7% and ≤8% in 32% and 45% of patients, respectively. Conclusion: With intensive insulin therapy, micro and macrovascular complications can be prevented significantly. Long-term sustainability of glycemic control was also achieved.

Introduction: Approximate Entropy (ApEn) is a widely enforced metric to evaluate the chaotic response and irregularities of RR intervals from an electrocardiogram. We applied the metric to estimate these responses in subjects with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM1). So far, as a technique it has one key problem - the accurate choices of the tolerance (r) and embedding dimension (M). So, we attempted to overcome this drawback by applying different groupings to detect the optimum. Methods: We studied 46 subjects split into two equal groups: DM1 and control. To evaluate autonomic modulation the heart rate was measured for 30 min in a supine position without any physical, sensory, or pharmacological stimuli. For the time-series, the ApEn was applied with set values for r (0.1→0.5 in intervals of 0.1) and M (1→5 in intervals of 1) and the differences between the two groups and their effect size by two measures (Cohen’s ds and Hedges’s gs) were computed. Results: The highest value of statistical significance accomplished for the effect sizes (ES) for any of the combinations performed was -0.7137 for Cohen’s ds and -0.7015 for Hedges’s gs with M = 2 and r = 0.08. Conclusion: ApEn was able to identify the reduction in chaotic response in DM1 subjects. Still, ApEn is relatively unreliable as a mathematical marker to determine this.

The present analysis was to identify the socioeconomic factors responsible for prevalence of obesity and diabetes simultaneously among adults of 18 years and above residing in both urban and rural localities of Bangladesh. Accordingly, information was collected from 960 adults by some doctors and nurses from and nearby their working places. Among the investigated adults, 66.9% were diabetic patients and 20.2% of them were obese. In the sample, total obese adults were 29.3%. Obesity and diabetes were significantly associated. Prevalence of obesity and diabetes were significantly associated with age, marital status and utilization of time. Income was the most responsible factor for this simultaneous health hazard followed by expenditure, physical activity, marital status, religion and occupation. This conclusion was drawn from the results of odds ratio and discriminant analysis.