Diabetes researchers say they have made a breakthrough that could pave the way to eliminating the need for daily insulin injections.
Key points:
- The Monash University team managed to get pancreatic cells to produce insulin
- If the research leads to animal studies and then clinical trials, it could reduce the need for insulin injections
- It could be a ‘game changer’ in the treatment of chronic disease, says an independent researcher
Research from Monash University, published in the journal Nature Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, could lead to the regeneration of insulin in pancreatic stem cells.
Insulin is a hormone, produced by what are known as beta cells in the pancreas, that helps regulate blood sugar levels.
In general, people with diabetes do not naturally produce enough insulin or their bodies do not use the hormone as they should. The beta cells of many people with diabetes are unable to produce insulin at all.
“There are different forms of diabetes and it is a disease that requires relentless attention,” said Keith Al-Hasani, a researcher at Monash University and one of the authors of the study.
Type 1 diabetes usually first presents when patients are children, which Dr Al-Hasani said often meant up to five insulin injections a day as youngsters adjusted to the disease. Adult sufferers can administer up to 100 injections per month to control the disease.
Study co-author Keith Al-Hasani says the research could lead to a cost-effective treatment. (ABC News: Rosanne Maloney)
After the death of a 13-year-old boy with type 1 diabetes, researchers studied donated pancreatic cells and used a compound to trigger insulin production.
“We’re reprogramming cells that don’t normally make insulin, to express insulin now,” said researcher and study co-author Ishant Khurana.
The GSK126 compound is approved for the treatment of another condition by the US Food and Drug Administration, but has not been used to treat diabetes in Australia or elsewhere.
“This is a major breakthrough in the field of diabetes,” said Dr. Khurana.
Ishant Khurana says the team’s work could lead to an improved quality of life for people with diabetes. (ABC News: Rosanne Maloney)
Although the researchers studied stem cells, they did not genetically alter the cells to obtain their results.
The authors acknowledged that there was still a long way to go before the potential treatment could be used in humans.
Next, they want to collect more pancreatic cell samples from a wider range of people and then move on to animal trials before possibly starting human clinical trials.
The ultimate goal, Dr. Khurana said, was to eliminate the need for daily injections and pancreas transplants.
It would affect most people with type 1 diabetes and about 30% of people with type 2 diabetes who are insulin dependent.
According to Diabetes Australia, about 1.8 million Australians have diabetes and it is the fastest growing disease in the country. About 500 million have the disease worldwide.
Simon McCrudden, 46, has been administering his own insulin since he was seven and said removing the burden of daily injections would be “massive”.
“I would have to relearn how to do daily life, but it would be great,” she said.
Injections and blood sugar monitoring are part of everyday life for Simon McCrudden, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child. (ABC Licence: SBS News/ Tim Stevens)
Associate Professor Neale Cohen, director of clinical diabetes research at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, said Monash’s research was still in its infancy but showed great potential.
“There are a number of attempts to find ways to replace beta cells, which are very important. And if that’s possible, what that would mean would be a cure for people with type 1 diabetes,” he said.
Dr. Cohen, who was not involved in the study, said that research over several decades had found that “it seems to be very difficult to reprogram cells to become insulin-producing cells.”
“So if you can cure these people of this difficult chronic disease, that’s a game changer,” he said.
“People will no longer need to inject themselves with insulin and will not have the burden of this chronic disease.”