Rats get insulin boost Medication based on pumpkin extract may significantly reduce the amount of insulin type 1 diabetics need to inject, say Chinese researchers. The extract reportedly helps regenerate damaged pancreatic cells responsible for insulin production. Diabetic rats fed the extract had almost normal insulin levels, healthday.com reports. Team leader Tao Xia of Shanghai's East China Normal University says that although type 1 diabetics probably would still require insulin shots, the extract could drastically cut the dosage. Dieting diabetics skip jabs Meanwhile, doctors in the US and Britain fear that thousands of young women with diabetes may be skipping their insulin injections to lose weight. The so-called diabulimia disorder - which the charity Diabetes UK estimates affects as many as one in three young female diabetics - can lead to blindness and heart and kidney disease, BBCi reports. Type 1 diabetics need daily injections to help them absorb glucose. Failure to do so can cause rapid weight loss. Depression find electric Stanford University researchers have isolated an electrical circuit in the brains of rats that appears to act as a funnel for depression - which could lead to better diagnosis and treatment for humans. The circuitry within the hippocampus was identified using high-speed, high-resolution cameras, AFP reports. Team leader Karl Deisseroth says the discovery helps explain why there can be many causes of and treatments for depression. 'It also helps us understand conceptually how something that seems as hard to get traction on as depression can have a quantitative, concrete basis.' Synthetic skin trials bode well A British company developing prototype artificial skin to help heal wounds has reported promising results from early trials. Intercytex says the skin, which could become an alternative to grafts, incorporates with real tissue better than any other substitutes, BBCi reports. The artificial skin uses fibrin, a protein found in healing wounds, human fibroblasts, which are cells the body uses to synthesise new tissue, and collagen, a protein that makes it more stable. Men are motormouths, too Stereotypes aside, men and women say about the same number of words a day - 16,000, on average, according to a University of Arizona study of almost 400 students. However, there are extremes: one man averaged about 47,000 words a day; another barely spoke 500, WebMD reports. The researchers say that, although the study was confined to university students, they're confident that 'the widespread stereotype about female talkativeness is unfounded'. Pensioners see the serious side It's no joke getting old - and the older you are, the harder it is to understand jokes, Washington University researchers have found. The results are in keeping with the difficulty many older people have with cognitive flexibility, abstract reasoning and short-term memory, AP reports. 'This wasn't about what people find funny,' says team leader Brian Carpenter. 'It was about whether they get what's supposed to be funny. There are basic cognitive mechanisms to understanding what's going on in a joke.' Jason Sankey is a tennis professional
