Diabetes beside being a metabolic disease being caused by some genetic factors but now being thought to be an infective cause too as scientists have identified four viruses that can produce insulin-like hormones that are active on human cells, thereby opening up possibilities of revealing biological mechanisms that may cause diabetes or cancer. Every cell in the body responds to the hormone insulin, and if that process starts to fail, you get diabetes.
By analyzing large public research databases that hold viral genomic sequences, the researchers found that various viruses can produce peptides that are similar in whole or in part to 16 human hormones and regulatory proteins."We show that these viral insulin-like peptides can act on human and rodent cells," said the study's lead author of the Joslin Diabetes Centre, a non-profit institution affiliated with Harvard Medical School. To…
