Islet amyloid, metabolic syndrome, and the natural progressive history of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Missouri School of Medicine. Columbia, Missouri, USA. mrh29@usmo.com

The presence of amyloid within the islet of the pancreas may be one of the best kept secrets in clinical medicine and translation of this century old finding may help to better understand the progressive nature of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes mellitus are associated with multiple metabolic toxicities which result in an elevated tension of redox stress within the islet. Redox stress is associated with damage to proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids which may have a profound affect upon the structure and function of the islet. Earlier diagnosis at the stage of impaired glucose tolerance (prediabetes) and intervention may have a positive outcome on stabilization of the vulnerable islet and beta cell as well as the multiple diabetic complications. The natural history and a shift in the treatment paradigm of type 2 diabetes mellitus is explored as a result of these century old findings.

PMID: 12221327 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]