University of Iowa researchers have found a way to improve circulation in the limbs of mice with diabetes. The findings have implications for the treatment of diabetes in humans.
Poor circulation is the cause of many dangerous health problems in people with diabetes.
The research team led by Gina C. Schatteman, Ph.D., a research scientist in the UI Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, discovered that injecting certain types of blood cells into the circulation-deficient limbs of mice with diabetes accelerated the restoration of blood flow to the limbs. The results were published in the Aug. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation . The UI study showed that a critical subset of blood cells, called angioblasts, taken from non-diabetic humans, helps to form new blood vessels in diabetic mice, and the rate of restoration of blood flow was faster than for untreated mice. In humans, restoring blood flow to damaged tissue, generally a slow process, is made even slower by diabetes. People with diabetes do not grow new blood vessels in their limbs as well as people without the disease.