In a new study from Yale, researchers have developed an oral medication to treat diabetes that controls insulin levels while simultaneously reversing the inflammatory effects of the disease.
The drug has two critical advantages over the standard treatment for diabetes.
Because it can be taken orally, it’s much simpler for the patient to stay compliant with his or her treatment.
It also addresses three major issues with diabetes at the same time: it helps control immediate blood glucose levels, restores pancreatic function, and re-establishes normal immunity in the pancreatic environment.
One of the major obstacles to creating a successful oral medication for diabetes is that the drug breaks down in the patient’s gastrointestinal system.
The nanoparticle, however, protects the insulin while carrying it to the site of the pancreas, where it unloads the medication.
The nanoparticle is more than just a means of delivery, though. It’s made from a polymerized ursodeoxycholic acid, a bile acid.
In its more natural form as a monomer, it has been used to make drugs for dissolving gallstones and liver stones. It hasn’t, however, been very effective as a treatment for diabetes.
In the study, the team polymerized the bile acid, though, which increases its ability to bind with receptors critical to metabolism, making it much more effective as a treatment for diabetes.
In their tests on mice, the nanoparticles reversed inflammation, restored metabolic functions, and extended their survival, while the cargo of the particles restored insulin levels.
The drug delivery system is also the basis for Toralgen, a biotechnology company that Fahmy co-founded.
The team says the potential is enormous for diabetes and other disease states as well.
If you care about diabetes, please read studies about a new way to prevent foot ulcers in diabetes, and this new diabetes test uses sweat, not blood to check blood sugar.
The study is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering. One author of the study is Tarek Fahmy.
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