NGF and diabetic neuropathy: Our study, for the first time, demonstrated the role of neuritin‐related survivability of SCs in experiment diabetic neuropathy: (a) reduced survival of SCs due to down‐expressed neuritin contributed to diabetic neuropathy; (b) exogenous neuritin treatment ameliorated survivability of diabetic SCs through enhancing the Bcl‐2 level and depressing the caspase‐3 activity; and (c) increased viable SCs associated with neuritin pre‐treatment improved neurite outgrowth of co‐cultured DRG neurons from diabetic rats, most likely through increased production of NGF.