New research suggests that type 2 diabetes can spread like mad cow disease.

It is estimated that about 6% of the world's population has type 2 diabetes.
, according to the World Health Organization, the incidence of the disease increased sharply from about 30 million cases in 1985 to about 390 million cases in 2015.
a new study finds that previously undebted mechanisms increase the likelihood of the spread of type 2 diabetes, or in a way similar to infectious diseases such as bovine spongiform disease (bovine disease).
type 1 diabetes, the risk of type 2 diabetes increases with age and is often thought to be caused by lack of exercise and obesity.
scientists still don't know why the number of people with the disease has increased dramatically over the past 50 years.
team at the University of Texas has focused on many abnormal protein deposits found in more than 90 percent of people with type 2 diabetes.
they have determined that most people with type 2 diabetes have misfolded and concentrated islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP) proteins.
the researchers then injected a small amount of misfolded IAAP protein into mice, which they found induced the formation of protein deposits in the animal's pancreas.
, they observed several symptoms associated with type 2 diabetes, such as elevated blood sugar levels and a decrease in the number of islet beta cells, within weeks of injection of the misfolded IAAP polymer.
Although studies have not determined how these misfolded IAAP proteins cause symptoms of type 2 diabetes, scientists believe that once enough of these proteins are concentrated in the pancreas, they can destroy and kill insulin-secreting islet beta cells in the body

study suggests that type 2 diabetes may be similar to other diseases transmitted and caused by these types of misfolded protein aggregates.
these diseases are called prion diseases, unlike other infectious diseases transmitted by viruses or bacteria.
is made up of misfolded proteins and can act as an agent for entering healthy organisms and spreading them to other proteins in a misfolded state.
most notorious prion disease in the United States is bovine spongiform disease (also known as mad cow disease).
the disease originated in cattle and was transmitted to humans by eating beef containing specific misfolded proteins or contaminated with prion viruses.
concept has not been considered so far," said Claudio Soto, a researcher who worked on the project.
, our data open up a whole new field of research that has far-reaching implications for public health.
study was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
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