Q&ABILLY WILSON, DEAL, KENT
IS THERE ANY HOPE
OF CURING DIABETES?
Diabetes is actually several medical
conditions with one thing in
common: they all lead to unhealthy
levels of glucose in the blood. While
the human body needs quick
access to sugar for energy,
excessive levels increase the risk of
premature death from heart
disease, stroke and kidney failure.
Normally, blood sugar levels are
controlled by the pancreas through
the release of insulin, a hormone
that helps cells absorb blood sugar.
But this can go wrong in several
ways, reflected in the different
forms of diabetes.In the UK, around 10 per cent of
cases are so-called ‘type 1’ diabetes,
caused by loss of the insulin-
producing cells in the pancreas. For
unknown reasons, these cells are
attacked by the body’s immune
system, so patients need regular
doses of insulin, usually by injection.
But the most common type, at
around 90 per cent, is ‘type 2’
diabetes, where cells no longer fully
respond to insulin. This ‘insulin
resistance’ leaves excess sugar in the
blood, triggering demand for yet
more insulin, leading to damage to
the pancreas. Type 2 diabetes is
often linked to diets rich in carbs and
sugar, and sedentary lifestyles.
While there’s no cure for either
type, patients with severe type 1 can
be offered a pancreas transplant,
which typically works for around five
years. There are also cases of
patients becoming disease-free for a
while, with their pancreas
mysteriously regaining its ability to
produce insulin. Whether this can be
triggered by drugs is currently a
focus of research. Intriguingly, a 2018
study at the University of Alabama at
Birmingham, US, found that
verapamil, a drug used to control
blood pressure, can help type 1
diabetics maintain insulin
production, but the research is still at
an early stage. For those with type 2
diabetes, changing to a healthier
diet, losing weight and taking more
exercise can often prove effective
in controlling symptoms.RMDILEEPBAGNALL,
LANCASHIREISTHE STRAIGHTLINE A HUMANINVENTION?You could argue that
there’s no such thing as
a straight line, because
everything – if you
zoom in close enough- has irregularities.
Even a beam of
laser light is slightly
curved, as light is bent
by the Earth’s
gravitational field.
But if we relax our
definition to ‘something
that looks straight to
the human eye’, then
we can find plenty of
straight lines in nature - rock strata, tree
trunks, the edges of
crystals, strands of
spider silk.
The reason we like
straight lines is because
of a fundamental
property of the
Universe – the shortest
distance between two
points is a straight line.
Nature also follows this
principle. Spiders, for
example, make their
webs by stretching silk
strands across the
shortest path.
It’s true that curved
lines are common in
nature, but many of
these are just an
extension of this
principle into three
dimensions. The
smallest surface area to
enclose a volume is a
sphere. So the bonds
between water
molecules pull
raindrops into a sphere,
and cells have rounded
shapes to reduce the
amount of cell
membrane they
need.LV
TAMSIN NICHOLSON, WARWICKSHIRE
WHY ARE SOME PEOPLE MORE SQUEAMISH THAN OTHERS?Psychologists call squeamishness ‘disgust
sensitivity’ or ‘disgust proneness’. Disgust is an
evolved emotional reaction that prompts us to
avoid potentially contaminating material, such as
blood, pus or faeces. This has obvious survival
advantages, helping us to avoid infectious
diseases and toxic food, but an overly sensitive
disgust response can have drawbacks – making us
less likely to try new foods, for instance, or board acrowded train. The survival value of different
levels of squeamishness will have varied
depending on the circumstances our ancestors
found themselves in, and variability in the
emotion has been passed down through the
generations. Our disgust sensitivity is also
influenced by early social learning, such as from
our parents’ disgust reactions, and by cultural
customs around hygiene and purity.CJ