UC San Diego researchers find that a weeklong mind-body retreat led to rapid changes in brain function and blood biology, boosting resilience, pain relief, and stress recovery—showing how meditation and related practices can quickly impact health.

Type 1 diabetes is caused by an insufficient production of the hormone insulin by cells in the pancreas called beta cells and estimated to affect 9.5 million people worldwide. Low insulin levels allow glucose levels to remain elevated, which in the long term can damage organs such as the kidneys, the eyes, and the cardiovascular system. People with diabetes require lifelong monitoring of blood sugar levels coupled with insulin injections to keep blood sugar levels at a stable, healthy level.

A potential new treatment option for those patients is the replacement of lost or dysfunctional pancreatic beta cells, either by cell transplantation, or by the generation of new beta cells from existing cells within the body. This latter strategy was pursued by the team of Xiaofeng Huang from Weill Cornell Medicine, USA and Qing Xia from Peking University, China who previously discovered that cells in the mouse stomach can be transformed into pancreatic beta cells by genetic engineering.