Type 1 diabetes treatment breakthrough

Wed, 18 Feb 2009
American diabetes news indicates that terminally ill rodents with type 1 diabetes have been returned to full health with an injection of a certain non-insulin substance. According to researchers at University of Texas Southwestern, injections of a leptin gene were given to insulin-deficient mice dying from diabetic coma.

Following the injection, the animals started to produce excess leptin, meaning that consequences of type 1 diabetes were reversed. These included weight loss, hyperglycemia and ketoacidosis.

Researcher Xinxin Yu reportedly commented: "These animals were actually dying. but if we gave them the leptin gene, within two weeks, the terminally ill rodents were restored to full health without any other treatment."

Study co-author professor Roger Unger was reported as commenting: "The fact that these animals don't die and are restored to normal health despite a total lack of insulin is hard for many researchers and clinicians to believe. Many scientists, including us, thought it would be a waste of time to give leptin in the absence of insulin. We've been brainwashed into thinking that insulin is the only substance that can correct the consequences of insulin deficiency ."

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