There has been some good news for those who have been diagnosed with type II diabetes recently as scientists at Maynooth University have said they have come up with a revolutionary new treatment to tackle the illness.
It us understood that Dr John Stephens the head of the department chemistry at the university says he and his team have found a compound that mimics the anti-diabetic effects of vigorous exercise. The amazing discovery also helps patients who lose significant weight gained during current treatments. Dr Stephens said: “There is a lot more work to do, but this looks very promising,” said Dr John Stephens who heads the department of chemistry. “If it is as clean as it looks, it will be a great improvement on what is currently available on the market.”
The news of the new treatment comes at crucial time as the amount of people being diagnosed with type II diabetes has soared in the past 10 years with 200,000 people being diagnosed with illness here and a further 370 million people worldwide. Dr Stephens says the illness occurs when the body becomes unable to take sugar out of the bloodstream and use it up as energy.
Dr Stephens also noted that a lack of exercise and obesity are significant factors in developing the illness, and there are serious health repercussions if it goes untreated, “Diabetes is very serious; you can go blind, you risk amputations, it is a very serious condition.” he said.
However Dr Stephens believes the new treatment discovered by his team at Maynooth can work up to a 1,000 times better than current treatment Metformin, without the drug’s side-effects. Dr Stephens explained: “Our compound is nothing like the drugs used at the moment so it is a potent new class of anti-diabetic agent.” he said. The team of scientists involved has spent five years developing the new compounds and has already used them to control Type II in mouse models.
“Our compounds are independent of the insulin pathway. The fact that it is independent of insulin means it could serve as an alternative to insulin, but there is much more work to do.” “We know quite a lot about the compounds, but there is still a long way to go in pre-clinical and toxicological work before we can run human trials. That is some years off – at least three or four,” he said.