Israeli chemist Yifat Miller and her PhD student Yoav Atsmon-Raz have found a critical link between Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and Parkinson’s disease (PD).
Miller’s research at Ben-Gurion University (BGU) of the Negev in Beersheva revealed, for the first time, the atomic structure of a brain protein fragment called non-amyloid beta component (NAC), known to trigger PD when it clumps together.
The same clumping action by an endocrine hormone called amylin harms insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas, leading to T2D. Amylin is also found in the brain, and previous studies show that its clumping there, with the aid of the peptide amyloid beta, is related to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and the death of neurons.
Miller suspected that this mechanism explains why people with T2D face twice the normal risk of developing AD later in life.
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