Type 2 diabetes is a disease characterized by the organism's inability to produce sufficient insulin amounts or to use this hormone properly, which causes blood to carry an excess of glucose that, in the long run, ends up damaging multiple organs of the entirebody.
Consequently, those affected - more than 415 million people worldwide - are backed every day treatments to control their glucose levels.
And while in most cases this control can be achieved with oral drugs, up to 25% of patients should necessarily resort to insulin injections.
But, isn't there any other alternative to not have to click weekly, when not daily?Well yes.
This is the case of ‘insulin bombs’, whose use, increasingly frequent, is not exempt from ‘complications’ and ‘discomfort’.However, researchers at Duke University in Durham (USA) could have found the key to simplify, much, the treatment of diabetes.
Specifically, the study, published in the "Nature Biomedical Engineering" magazine, describes how a new biopolymer loaded with a drug capable of inducing insulin release is capable of regulating blood glucose levels for a period of two weeks in primates.An effect for which a single injection is required and that, applied to humans, could be extended until beyond eight weeks.
Controlled release
Many of the current treatments for type 2 diabetes are based on the administration of a signaling molecule that, called ‘peptide similar to type 1’ glucagon (LPG1), induces the production and release of insulin by pancreas cells.The problem is that the half -life of this LPG1 is very short - the organism degrades it at a great speed -, so it must be continuously administered to carry out its action.
So what can be done to prolong its effect?Well, unite it to molecules, whether biological - such as antibodies - or synthetic, that mitigate their degradation, which makes their half -life in the organism last for several days in animal models - trays - and up to a week in humans.However, this ‘fusion’ with molecules does not allow the control of the release of the GPL1, so the treatment ends up losing its effectiveness over time.
We hope that our work allows the first formulation every two weeks, every month or every two months for patients with type 2 diabetes. Ashutosh Chilkoti.
To solve this problem, the authors of the new study have created a technology that merges the LPG1 with a 'elastin -type polypeptide' (elp) sensitive to heat to form a liquid or 'solution' that can be inoculated in the skin with a normal syringe.Consequently, and once injected, this ‘solution’ reacts with body heat to form a biodegradable gel that, little by little, is releasing the drug.
And this new technique, does it work?Yes, and very well.In fact, the experiments carried out with animal models - trays - have shown that this new therapy facilitates glucose control up to three times more lasting than is achieved with the currently marketed treatments.
As Ashutosh Chilkoti, research director explains, «although we have been pursuing this method for years, it has not been until we have modified the design of the biopolymer at the molecular level when we have managed to maximize the duration of the release of the drug with a single injection.The result is that we have managed to triple the duration of this short action drug for type 2 diabetes ».
Every two months
More;After tripling the duration of the control of blood sugar levels inmice-from 2-3 usual days to 10 days-the authors repeated the experiment with non-human primates.Specifically, with Rhesus macaque.And in this case, they observed that a single injection was able to induce glucose control for 14 days - period in which the drug release rate remained constant.
As Ashutosh Chilkoti refers, «what is truly interesting of our work is that it has shown that the drug can last more than two weeks in non -human primates.And since our metabolism is slower than that of mice and monkeys, treatment should even have a longer duration in humans.We hope this is the first formulation every two weeks, every month or every two months for patients with type 2 diabetes ».
In this context, it should be taken into account that the most prolonged action glucose currently available requires a weekly injection - and that conventional insulins need to be inoculated once or twice every day.Therefore, the authors indicate, "by limiting the number of injections required to achieve control of glucose levels, we hope that our new tool will improve the therapeutic options for this disease."
But the benefits of the new technique do not end here.In addition to being cheap to produce, it is possible that this controlled drug release system can be used in other diseases.In fact, the authors are already considering implementing a study to evaluate their effectiveness in pain treatment.
