(Courtesy: University Hospitals Authority and Trust

OKLAHOMA CITY – The ability to remember is something many take for granted. Now, new research at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center shows our cells have a memory too. But in diabetics, cell memory may not be a good thing.

Michael Ihnat, Ph.D. and his team of researchers looked at human endothelial cells, the cells that line our blood vessels. They exposed those cells to high glucose levels as would be seen in a diabetic with high blood sugar. The cells were exposed to high glucose levels for a period of two weeks.

“Then we normalized the glucose, as you would with insulin or other drugs, and we did that for one week –- so two weeks high glucose, one week normal glucose, and we looked at biochemical markers of stress,” said Ihnat.

They discovered that even when glucose levels were normalized, the cells remained stressed. In other words the cells actually had a “memory.” They remembered the stress brought on by high glucose levels in the body. Ihnat theorized that memory may play a role in a number of common complications of diabetes. So he began looking at cellular signs of stress in organs commonly affected by diabetes – the kidneys and the retina of the eye. 
“What we found again was that those organs were just as stressed a week after normalizing or bringing the glucose under control,” Ihnat said.

The OU scientific team didn’t stop there. Next, they introduced Alpha Lipoic Acid, an antioxidant widely available as a nutritional supplement. They hoped to learn if it might help the cells “forget” the stress of high glucose.

“We found that it did interrupt what we call the “memory” of high glucose stress,” Ihnat said. In fact, it made the cells appear almost as though they had never been exposed to abnormal levels of glucose.

Ihnat said he believes the findings show that normalizing blood sugar in diabetics alone is not enough and that antioxidants may need to be added as well to help prevent some of the more troublesome complications of diabetes.

The team at the OU Health Sciences Center is now conducting more long-term experiments in an effort to determine how long the cells remember the stress brought on by high blood sugar levels.

For more information contact: Theresa Green (405) 771-2287