Insulin, the hormone most closely linked to diabetes, has turned out to be the cause of the inherited form of the blood sugar disease, researchers report.For reasons that remain unclear, in patients with type 1 diabetes the body’s immune T-cells react against insulin-producing cells in the pancreas -- effectively shutting them down and triggering disease onset.After eight long years of painstaking research, scientists believe they’ve finally pegged insulin as the prime antigen -- immune system target -- responsible for this shutdown."In the end, it’s a very simple answer. A lot of studies that we do in science tend to be complex, but in this case, we get a break,” said lead researcher Dr. David A. Hafler, Breakstone professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. His team’s research appears in the May 12 issue of Nature.
