Type 2 Diabetes and the Aging Pancreatic Beta Cell

Uma Gunasekaran¹, Maureen Gannon^1,^2,^3,^4,⁵

¹Departments of Medicine
²Molecular Physiology and Biophysics
³Cell and Developmental Biology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
⁴VA Medical Center, Nashville, TN
⁵Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2213 Garland Avenue MRBIV 7465, Nashville, TN 37232-0475

Received: June 13, 2011Accepted: June 22, 2011Published: June 28, 2011

Copyright: © 2011 Gunasekaran et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

The incidence of and susceptibility to Type 2 diabetes increases with age, but the underlying mechanism(s) within beta cells that contribute to this increased susceptibility have not been fully elucidated. Here we review how aging affects the proliferative and regenerative capacity of beta cells and how this impacts beta cell mass. In addition we review changes that occur in beta cell function with age. Although we focus on the different rodent models that have provided insight into the characteristics of the aging beta cell, the limited knowledge from non-rodent models is also reviewed. Further studies are needed in order to identify potential beta cell targets for preventing or slowing the progression of diabetes that occurs with age.