Search for new diabetes treatment
Thursday August 21st, 2014
Researchers may have found a new clue to the causes of diabetes - opening up the way to new treatments to prevent the disease, it was announced yesterday.
The researchers say they could have medicines ready for clinical trials within two years.
Their findings apply to both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
The work has taken 20 years at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and is being led by a professor at Manchester University, UK, Professor Garth Cooper.
The pancreas produces insulin but the research has centred on a second hormone produced by the organ - amylin.
The researchers say the destruction of the pancreas that causes diabetes is caused by toxic clumps of amylin. The accumulation of these clumps is faster in type 1 diabetes, which tends to be developed in childhood.
The latest findings were published in the FASEB Journal.
A spokesman for Manchester University said: "Professor Cooper’s group expects to have potential medicines ready to go into clinical trials in the next two years and it is anticipated that these will be tested in both type-1 and type-2 diabetic patients.
"These clinical trials are being planned with research groups in England and Scotland."
The pathogenic mechanism of diabetes varies with the degree of overexpression and oligomerization of human amylin in the pancreatic islet beta cells. FASEB Journal 20 August 2014
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