By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
Korean and American scientists have shed new light on the possibility of treating diabetes without insulin injections.
A research team headed by Prof. Park Byung-hyun of Korea's Chonbuk University and Prof. Roger Unger of the Southwestern Medical Center at the University of Texas said they observed drops in the blood sugar levels of mice infected with type 1 diabetes through the injection of leptin, a protein hormone, in an article published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The lowered blood sugar level was maintained 10 to 80 days, and the result implies leptin can be a key factor in controlling blood sugar metabolism, thus laying the foundation to finding a way to control diabetes without using insulin, the team said.
Leptin, secreted from fat tissues of the body, is known to be significant in regulating energy intake in appetite and expenditure through metabolism.
In the study, the increased leptin level in the mice seems to work for sugar control in the blood by constraining the formation and secretion of glucagons, a hormone involved in carbohydrate metabolism, it said.
Glucagon is produced in the pancreas and released when the glucose level in the blood is low, causing the liver to convert stored glycogen into glucose and release it into the bloodstream to raise the sugar level.
``This means the activity of glucagons can be restrained or blocked by leptin and, in other words, that type 1 diabetes can be preventable or curable with its use,'' Prof. Park said.
Type 1 diabetes is characterized by loss of the insulin-producing beta cells, leading to a deficiency of insulin. The cell loss is mainly attributable to an autoimmune attack mediated by T-cells, which play a pivotal role in cell immunity. No specific preventive measure has been found yet against type 1 diabetes.
The disease is commonly referred to ``juvenile diabetes'' even though it affects both children and adults.