Having been asked privately to provide more:
from
<http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/39146/title/Lack_of_sleep_has_genetic_link_with_type_2_diabetes>
Parts of the article are:
>The scientists, including Groop, also did experiments that looked at
>how melatonin might directly interact with insulin-producing cells.
...
>The melatonin receptor was thought to be primarily expressed in the
>brain... Groop and colleagues now show that insulin-producing cells,
>called beta-cells, in the pancreas of mice, rats and humans, also
>have the melatonin receptor.
...
>The presence of the melatonin receptor on the insulin-secreting cells
>makes it more likely that the receptor is directly controlling the
>output of insulin. When scientists added melatonin to human beta-cells
>in the lab, insulin production went down.
But don't take it out of context. Please, sign in at that site and
read the article.
The original articles are in Nature Genetics.
There is also work in rats indicating that melatonin can decrease
insulin production according to a vet who is a dear friend. Now,
rodents and humans are more closely related to each other than to
members of Carnivora, and there are obvious differences, so it can not
be automatically expected to be a carry-over, but melatonin is a very
ancient hormone so it could well behave in the same way in mammals in
general. It would be interesting if someone looked at this with ferret
beta cells.
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/http://ferrethealth.org/archive/http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.htmlhttp://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/http://www.ferretcongress.org/http://www.trifl.org/index.shtmlhttp://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
[Posted in FML 6204]
