In the study, scientists at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and the private, nonprofit City of Hope Clinical Research Center tested the drug on diabetic mice, showing a dramatic 700 percent increase in insulin-producing cells over just three months, effectively reversing the disease.
Beta cells in the pancreas have an important job of producing insulin in response to blood sugar levels, but the hallmark of diabetes is that these cells are either destroyed or cannot produce enough insulin, explained Katherine Charneski, lead author of the study.
Currently, there are no approved treatments that increase beta cell numbers. However, in this new development, scientists have demonstrated new hope through a treatment that combines two drugs: one is harmine, a natural molecule found in some plants, which inhibits an enzyme called DYRK1A found in beta cells. The other is a GLP1 receptor agonist, a class of diabetes drugs that includes Ozempic, which has recently gained attention because of its side effect of weight loss.
They found that this therapeutic combination in vivo promoted significant increases in the mass of human beta cells transplanted into mice with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Insulin-producing cells grew within the body in just three months. The recovery was maintained even after treatment stopped.
“Three months of combination therapy restored glucose homeostasis in a model of streptozotocin-induced diabetes, with effects lasting at least a month after treatment was withdrawn,” Charneski said.
“This is the first time that scientists have developed a drug therapy that has been shown to increase the number of adult human beta cells in vivo,” study author Dr. Adolfo García Ocaña told New Atlas. “This research brings hope that future regenerative therapies could be used to treat hundreds of millions of people with diabetes.”
The study showed that the observed effects were due to changes in beta cell proliferation, function, and lifespan.
While the results may be promising, more research is needed to confirm the drug’s effectiveness in humans with this chronic disease.
The study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Source: Interesting Engineering
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2024-07-25 02:31:25
