The results of a recent investigation suggest that the two main types of diabetes, type 1 and type 2, are the product of the same mechanism.
The authors of the study, of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, and that of Auckland in New Zealand, have provided convincing evidence that type 1 diabetes, initiated mostly in childhood or youth, and type 2 diabetes, arecaused both by the formation of toxic lumps of a hormone called amiline.
The finding raises the hopeful possibility that both classes of diabetes can be restrained, and perhaps even reversed, by medications that prevent these toxic lumps from being formal.
In addition to producing insulin, cells in the pancreas also produce amiline hormone.Insulin and amiline normally work together to regulate body response to food.If the production of these stops, and it is not possible to properly control blood sugar levels, they tend to rise, causing diabetes and damaging organs such as heart, kidneys, eyes and nerves.
Part of the amiline produced can be deposited around the cells in the pancreas, such as toxic lumps, which later, in turn, destroy the cells that produce insulin and amiline.This cell death causes diabetes.
The research carried out by the Garth Cooper team, a professor at Manchester, suggests that this mechanism is not only the material cause of type 2 diabetes, but also type 1.
The difference is that in type 1 diabetes the disease begins at an earlier age and progresses more rapidly, compared to type 2, because there is a deposition of faster amiline lumps in the pancreas.
Professor Cooper's group hopes to have potential medications ready to move on to clinical trials in the next two years and are expected to be tested with patients with type 1 diabetes and patients with type 2. These clinical trials are planned with research groups with research groupsIn England and Scotland.
