New research suggests a new way to treat both forms of diabetes by regulating insulin and glucagon. Scientists have used synthetic antibodies to block cell receptors in the liver. These normally bind to glucagon - a hormone that is involved in theIncrease in blood sugaris involved.
Transformation of cells balances insulin and glucagon
Diabetes prevents the body from regulating glucose levels in the blood. In the long term, this can lead to a variety of life-changing complications, including vision loss, kidney damage, stroke and heart disease. In healthy individuals, the opposing effects of two hormones, insulin and glucagon, maintain blood sugar at optimal levels. Beta cells in the pancreas produce insulin, which stimulates the responsible cells in the body to extract glucose from the bloodstream. Other cells in the pancreas, called alpha cells, produce glucagon. This increases the amount of glucose that liver cells release into the bloodstream.
In type 1 diabetes, the immune system targets beta cells and reduces insulin production. In contrast, with type 2 diabetes, the cells in the body become resistant to the effects of insulin. Beta cells respond by producing more and more hormones and eventually die. Now a research team has found that blocking glucagon has the indirect effect of converting alpha cells in the pancreas into beta cells.
This conversion could be a particularly promising treatment for diabetes, according to the study authors. Even after decades of an autoimmune attack on their beta cells, type 1 diabetics will still have plenty of alpha cells. So these are not the cells in the pancreas that are dying. As in people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, the loss of beta cells reduced the ability of the mouse models used to produce insulin and thus regulate their glucose levels. Than the researchers to the animalsweekly injectionsmonoclonal antibodies, the treatment significantly lowered their blood sugar levels. Remarkably, the improvement lasted weeks.
When the team treated the lab mice with the synthetic antibodies, the animals' beta cells recovered despite persistent immune attacks. Finally, the researchers tested whether the treatment would work in human pancreatic cells and observed equally good results.This studygives hope that a weekly injection of a human antibody against receptors of insulin and glucagon can improve functional beta cells.
