Zhou et al. (2022) showed that the root extract of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi promoted β-cell function and prevented apoptosis in diabetes treatment by inducing autophagy. Luo et al. (2019) showed that SIRT1 promoted autophagy via AMPK activation and reduced hypoxia-induced apoptosis, to protect cardiomyocytes from hypoxic stress. Here, SIRT1 is linked to diabetes mellitus.