Most people don&#8217;t think of type 2 diabetes as a disease you can cure. Well, for some patients, <a href="https://health.clevelandclinic.org/7-bariatric-surgery-benefits-besides-helping-you-lose-weight/">it&#8217;s possible</a> we can — with gastric bypass surgery. It can also lead to potentially life-saving weight loss, lower blood pressure, and relieve depression. In fact, in <a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/ccf/media/files/Bariatric_Surgery/bariatric_surgery_cure_type2_diabetes.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one study</a> of 20,000 patients who had gastric bypass surgery, 84 percent found their type 2 diabetes completely cured.
There are downsides, however. <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/bariatric-surgery/about/pac-20394258">Possible side effects</a> include hernias, infection, blood clots, ulcers, and even death.
So, what if type 2 diabetes patients could get the same benefits of gastric bypass surgery without going under the knife?
Researchers from Brigham and Women&#8217;s Hospital (BWH) think they&#8217;re on track to figure out just how to do that. They published <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-018-0106-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">their findings</a> Monday in Nature Materials.
A quick primer on gastric bypass surgery. Though the specifics can vary, the surgery basically &#8220;shrinks&#8221; the size of a person&#8217;s stomach by blocking off a large portion of the organ from the rest. Surgeons do the same in the small intestine.
With a stomach that can now only hold a very small amount of food, patients can no longer eat large meals. Additionally, because the food they do eat no longer travels through the entire small intestine, the body doesn&#8217;t absorb as many nutrients. Cumulative effect: weight loss.
<figure id="attachment_132664" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-132664 size-full" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/06/diabetes-pill.jpg" alt="type 2 diabetes" width="610" height="800" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Image Credit: Brigham and Women&#8217;s Hospital and Randal Mckenzie</figcaption></figure>
People with type 2 diabetes have unusually high <a href="http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/type-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blood glucose (sugar) levels</a>. <a href="https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?contenttypeid=56&amp;contentid=DM113" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Food consumption</a> plays a major role in this elevation, and <a href="http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/recently-diagnosed/where-do-i-begin/weight-loss.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">weight loss</a> is one way to effectively treat it. So, people get gastric bypass surgery, lose weight, and reverse their diabetes. Cut and dry, right?
Not according to doctors. Many <a href="https://www.popsci.com/gastric-bypass-diabetes#page-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">aren&#8217;t convinced</a> that weight loss deserves all the credit for reversing type 2 diabetes in gastric bypass patients. In fact, they <a href="https://www.popsci.com/gastric-bypass-diabetes#page-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">don&#8217;t really know why</a> the surgery helps, just that it does.
The BWH team&#8217;s gastric bypass alternative could help, too. Here&#8217;s how it works.
Using an FDA-approved drug called sucralfate as a base, the team engineered a compound they call LuCI (Luminal Coating of the Intestine). Once ingested, the compound temporarily coats the inner lining of the intestine. This essentially replicates how the surgery makes part of the intestine unable to absorb nutrients. And it seems effective — within an hour of administration, LuCI lowered rats&#8217; after-meal response to glucose by 47 percent.
&#8220;What we&#8217;ve developed here is essentially, &#8216;surgery in a pill,'&#8221; study co-lead author Yuhan Lee said in a <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/bawh-ia060818.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>. &#8220;We&#8217;ve used a bioengineering approach to formulate a pill that has good adhesion properties and can attach nicely to the gut in a preclinical model. And after a couple of hours, its effects dissipate.&#8221;
The pill, of course, isn&#8217;t quite ready to go on sale yet. Next, the researchers plan to test LuCI in diabetic and obese rats. If it works as hoped, the drug could one day provide a much-needed replacement for gastric bypass surgery in reversing type 2 diabetes.

It could deliver the same benefits as gastric bypass surgery, with fewer risks.

This pill could reverse type 2 diabetes

Health & Medicine

A new pill coats the inner lining of the intestine to prevent the normal absorption of nutrients, which researchers think could reverse type 2 diabetes.

This Pill Could Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

"What we’ve developed here is essentially 'surgery in a pill.'"

<h2>Reversing Type 2 Diabetes</h2>
Researchers from Newcastle and Glasgow Universities believe they have found a way to effectively reverse type 2 diabetes, without requiring <a href="https://futurism.com/new-clinical-trial-made-diabetes-patients-insulin-independent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a new kind of drug</a> or invasive surgery. <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/type-2-diabetes/symptoms-causes/syc-20351193">Type 2 diabetes</a> is a chronic condition that affects how a person&#8217;s body metabolizes sugar, either because they&#8217;ve developed resistance to the hormone insulin, or their pancreas fails to produce enough insulin.
It&#8217;s long been believed that the condition is manageable, but not curable. According to findings published in the journal <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)33102-1/fulltext?elsca1=tlpr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Lancet</a>, however, type 2 diabetes can be reversed through weight loss. More specifically, by reducing the amount of fat being carried in and around the abdomen, as accumulated fat in this region impedes the function of the pancreas.
The study included 298 patients, aged 20 to 65, who had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within the previous six years. Half of the patients were put on a low-calorie diet and lost an average of 10 to 15 kg (22 to 33 pounds). The other half of patients, who served as a control group, received the best diabetes management available — but that did not include a weight loss program.
Of the patients who lost weight, more than half saw their diabetes go into remission: 86 percent of the patients who lost more than 15kg, 57 percent who lost 10 to 15 kg, and 34 percent who lost 5 to 10 kg.
Of the patients in the control group who were not on a weight management protocol, only 4 percent saw their diabetes go into remission.
&#8220;These findings are very exciting. They could revolutionize the way type 2 diabetes is treated. This builds on the work into the underlying cause of the condition, so that we can target management effectively,&#8221; lead researcher Roy Taylor, from the Newcastle University, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/05/radical-diet-can-reverse-type-2-diabetes-new-study-shows" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told </a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/05/radical-diet-can-reverse-type-2-diabetes-new-study-shows" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Guardian</a>. Interesting, indeed, as many of the current treatments for type 2 diabetes involve medication and even surgery to restrict stomach capacity.
“Substantial weight loss results in reduced fat inside the liver and pancreas, allowing these organs to return to normal function. What we’re seeing … is that losing weight isn’t just linked to better management of type 2 diabetes: significant weight loss could actually result in lasting remission,&#8221; added Taylor, whose team presented the results of the trials at the International Diabetes Federation Congress in Abu Dhabi.
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<h2>Sometimes, No Advanced Tech is Needed</h2>
It&#8217;s fairly standard practice for physicians to encourage, if not prescribe, <a href="https://futurism.com/healthcare-startup-claims-it-can-defeat-diabetes-with-nutrition-alone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a healthy diet </a>for most of their patients, especially those with type 2 diabetes. But dietary guidance has not traditionally been the focus of treatment for diabetes and similar conditions. “Rather than addressing the root cause, management guidelines for type 2 diabetes focus on reducing blood sugar levels through drug treatments. Diet and lifestyle are touched upon, but diabetes remission by cutting calories is rarely discussed,” Taylor told The Guardian.
The new study showed that a diet of 825–853 calories per day over a period of 3 to 5 months, followed by a gradual reintroduction of food in the next two to eight weeks, could have a profound impact. “Our findings suggest that even if you have had type 2 diabetes for six years, putting the disease into remission is feasible,&#8221; University of Glasgow professor Michael Lean, co-lead researcher, explained to The Guardian. “In contrast to other approaches, we focus on the need for long-term maintenance of weight loss through diet and exercise and encourage flexibility to optimize individual results.”
<a href="http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/204871/1/9789241565257_eng.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to the World Health Organization (WHO)</a>, global diabetes cases have increased from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. Those numbers are expected to reach 642 million by 2040. According to data from <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/aag/diabetes.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports</a>, type 2 diabetes accounts for around 90 to 95 percent of cases in adults.
These findings present a hopeful option not just for improved management of the condition, but a potential cure. One that doesn&#8217;t rely on expensive medications or invasive surgery, but instead, on improved diet and lifestyle — which could also be beneficial in managing and preventing a number of other <a href="https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/weight-management/health-risks-overweight">chronic conditions which are affected by weight</a>. As Taylor told The Guardian, &#8220;The weight loss goals provided by this programme [sic] are achievable for many people. The big challenge is long-term avoidance of weight re-gain.&#8221;

These findings could revolutionize the way type 2 diabetes is treated.

In a new study, researchers claim they've found a way to reverse type 2 diabetes

Close up nurse demonstrating insulin pen on finger

New research from two universities in the United Kingdom has demonstrated that weight loss may be a viable way to reverse type 2 diabetes.

In a New Study, Researchers Claim They've Found a Way to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

It caused remission in 90% of trial patients.

In a New Study, Researchers Claim They’ve Found a Way to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

<h2>Down with Diabetes</h2>
More than 29 million people suffer from diabetes in the United States alone. Now, a new healthcare startup called Virta claims that it can stamp out the condition for good — and what&#8217;s more, it plans to do so using little more than a sensible diet plan and a smartphone app.
Virta puts its patients on a nutrition plan that cuts out sugar and bad carbohydrates. To make sure that they can stick to this diet safely, they&#8217;re kept in constant contact with a trained physician, exchanging text messages and engaging in video calls as often as every day.
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Each patient&#8217;s plan is highly individualized, with everything from their food intake, to their recommended activity levels, to their medication being tailored to their specific situation. Preliminary test have been very promising, with a recent trial of 262 people allowing 87 percent of participants to stop using insulin completely or at least reduce their dosage.
<h2>Personal Care</h2>
Virta founder Sami Inkinen had good reason to get into diabetes care. In 2007, he had just started competing in Ironman triathlon events, when he was told that he was pre-diabetic.<figure style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/bioprinting-how-3d-printing-is-changing-medicine/"><img src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2015/12/home.jpg" alt="Bioprinting: How 3D Printing is Changing Medicine" ></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text center"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/bioprinting-how-3d-printing-is-changing-medicine/" target="_blank">Click to View Full Infographic</a></figcaption></figure>
&#8220;I started reading research and that’s what kind of led me to meet my scientific co-founders,&#8221; said Inkinen in a <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/27/sami-inkinen-on-his-bold-plan-to-cure-type-2-diabetes-forever/" target="_blank">recent interview with Tech Crunch</a>. &#8220;The bottom line, what these guys had shown is that there is a way to nutritionally reverse type 2 diabetes without starving you to death. They had published all these papers. I was like this is nuts. This is 30 years-old science.&#8221;
Diabetes has a huge impact on the lives of people affected, not least when they&#8217;re forced to administer their own insulin injections. Fortunately, researchers are finding ways to avoid this process, from <a href="https://futurism.com/crispr-skin-grafts-could-replace-insulin-shots-for-diabetes/" target="_blank">CRISPR skin grafts</a> to <a href="https://futurism.com/new-clinical-trial-made-diabetes-patients-insulin-independent/" target="_blank">cell implants</a>, to a <a href="https://futurism.com/we-now-have-an-app-that-can-activate-cells-that-manage-diabetes/" target="_blank">smartphone app</a>.

A new health care startup called Virta claims it can stamp out Diabetes — and using little more than a sensible diet plan and a smartphone app.

Healthcare Startup Claims It Can Defeat Diabetes With Nutrition Alone

In a recent trial, Virta helped 87 percent of participants reduce their insulin dosage, or stop their intake completely.

New medicines come to our pharmacies through a rigorous process that begins in the lab and ends with multiple trials in humans. Along the way there can be animal studies, such as trials of type 2 diabetes drugs in mice.
While mice are not people, they do share plenty of biological similarities with us to be valuable trial subjects. But sometimes treatments that work in mice fail without an explanation in humans. And now scientists have finally cracked the case on why that happens.
Researchers from Lund University in Sweden and King&#8217;s College London have found that mice and humans have previously unknown differences when it comes to having G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) on insulin-producing <a href="http://www.diabetes.co.uk/body/beta-cells.html">beta cells</a> in the pancreas.
GPCRs are found on the surfaces of many cells, where they receive chemical messages via various molecules called G proteins. <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/gpcr-14047471">We have nearly 1,000 different GPCRs</a>, each finely tuned to react to a particular molecular signal.
These receptors have a laundry list of jobs in the body, including detection of certain tastes and smells, immune system regulation, transmission of nerve signals, and many more.
<figure style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/bioprinting-how-3d-printing-is-changing-medicine/"><img src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2015/12/home.jpg" alt="Bioprinting: How 3D Printing is Changing Medicine" ></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text center"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/bioprinting-how-3d-printing-is-changing-medicine/" target="_blank">Click to View Full Infographic</a></figcaption></figure>
That&#8217;s why pharmaceuticals can be used to target specific GPCRs. This avenue of delivering drugs is so popular, <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/mdd/v07/i11/html/1104feature_filmore.html">it is estimated</a> that around 40 percent of all modern prescription meds target this receptor type.
But when it comes to developing GPCR-targeted drugs for type 2 diabetes, we&#8217;ve had little success. And that could well be because the receptors in mouse and human beta cells just don&#8217;t match up.
Scientists already knew that might be the case, but now they have clearly outlined some of these differences, and also found some promising similarities.
Cells in the pancreas hang out in little clusters known as islets. The team compared islets from two types of laboratory mice, and from non-diabetic human organ donors.
They found that humans don&#8217;t actually have some of the GPCRs that we target in mouse islets in order to help with insulin production. Meanwhile other receptors are only found in humans, but not in mice.
&#8220;This means that a drug developed to stimulate or inhibit a particular receptor which, in mice, can lead to increased insulin production, might have no effect on humans, or even could cause unbeneficial and diabetes-like symptoms,&#8221; <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-07/lu-nrd070317.php">says one of the team, Stefan Amisten</a> from King&#8217;s College London.
And that&#8217;s not even all. The researchers even found receptor differences between the two types of lab mice they used.
&#8220;This is well known, and a source of great frustration for researchers and the pharmaceutical industry,&#8221; says Lund University&#8217;s Albert Salehi.
&#8220;Is it then right to continue to develop drugs based on research conducted on mice, when these drugs cannot be used on humans?&#8221;
That&#8217;s an important question, and it&#8217;s exactly the reason why this comparison study will be useful for other scientists who are hunting for new diabetes drugs and thinking of testing them in mice first.
&#8220;Overall, the data presented here provide an essential resource for the translation of mouse islet functional data to the human islet context,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46600#discussion">the researchers write in the study</a>.
Thankfully, the researchers also mapped a bunch of GPCRs which are similar in both mice and humans, so there&#8217;s scope for research there. And now that scientists have a better roadmap of all these differences and similarities, drug testing will hopefully be more precise in the future.
The study was recently published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46600#abstract">Scientific Reports</a>.

Scientist holding white laboratory mouse (mus musculus) in hands

Type 2 diabetes drugs have gone through trials in both mice and humans, and sometimes drugs that were successful on mice don't work on humans.

We Now Know Why Some Diabetes Treatments Work on Mice but Not on People

Now that scientists have this information, future tests can be more precise.

<h2>Reversing Type 2 Diabetes</h2>
Type 2 diabetes, a disease wherein the body is incapable of producing sufficient levels of insulin or doesn’t respond to insulin correctly, can be a lifelong disease. It leads to the build up of blood sugars and in the cell&#8217;s inability to receive the energy it needs to function correctly. It’s also more likely to afflict people over the age of 40, those who are overweight, or anyone whose family has a history of diabetes.
Prior to this research, there was no definitive cure for type 2 diabetes, although experts have long hypothesized that it could be reversible. A team of Canadian scientists have demonstrated that this theory is indeed correct. In some patients, type 2 diabetes can be reversed through a combination of lifestyle changes, intensive medical treatment using oral medication, and insulin therapy. The researchers published their <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-abstract/doi/10.1210/jc.2016-3373/3070517/Piloting-a-Remission-Strategy-in-Type-2-Diabetes?redirectedFrom=fulltext">study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology &amp; Metabolism</a>.
<figure style="width: 401px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img class="" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/03/insulin.jpg" alt="A Clinical Trial Just “Reversed” Type 2 Diabetes in 40% of Patients" width="401" height="267" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Credit: Sprogz</figcaption></figure>
They tested their theory in diabetic patients who had been symptomatic for up to three years. The subjects underwent a personalized exercise regimen, and a strict diet that closely watched and limited their calorie intake to just 500 to 700 a day, and pharmacological treatment with glucose-controlling drugs.
Four months after the intervention, the study revealed that 40 percent of the 83 subjects were able to effectively stop taking their medications, staying in partial or even complete remission.
<h2>One in Ten</h2>
The results of this pilot study suggest patients with type 2 diabetes have more options to treat their condition, said the study’s first author, Natalia McInnes, of McMaster University.
&#8220;The findings support the notion that type 2 diabetes can be reversed, at least in the short term — not only with bariatric surgery, but with medical approaches,” McInnes said in an <a href="https://www.endocrine.org/news-room/current-press-releases/intensive-medical-treatment-can-reverse-type-2-diabetes">Endocrine Society press release</a>. &#8220;The research might shift the paradigm of treating diabetes from simply controlling glucose to an approach where we induce remission and then monitor patients for any signs of relapse.”
According to the <a href="http://endocrinefacts.org/health-conditions/diabetes-2/">Society’s Endocrine Facts and Figures</a> report, one out of 10 American adults suffer from type 2 diabetes. Raising the possibility of reversing the disease can prove to be strong motivation for patients to actually make lifestyle changes and maintain them, McInnes said. This new treatment could also give the patients&#8217; pancreases a rest and lower fat stores in their bodies, thus improving insulin production in the long run.
Right now, the treatment has proven to be effective only in the short term, but further study and other drug combinations could ultimately lead to better results and higher remission rates.

Four months after the intervention, the study revealed that 40 percent of the 83 subjects were able to effectively stop taking their medications.

A Clinical Trial Just ‘Reversed’ Type 2 Diabetes in 40% of Participants

Four months after starting treatment, they no longer needed their medications.

<h2>Oramed Pharmaceuticals</h2>
A small pharmaceutical company based in Israel called <a href="http://www.oramed.com/">Oramed Pharmaceuticals Inc</a>. announced that their oral insulin has shown significant success in lowering night-time blood glucose in type 2 diabetes patients.
The pill is still in its experimental stage, with current data based on a mid-stage trial, but its success is causing experts to reconsider the efficacy of insulin delivered orally. It is widely doubted that insulin will survive as it passes through digestive juices to deliver its intended effect. However, Oramed makes use of a protective coating and a high dose of insulin so that, while it has to go through the digestive tract, it will still deliver a clinically beneficial dose of the hormone.
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While the results from the trial are successful, these must be replicated in a larger scale before it can be submitted for approval. This will be the third phase of the study.
Should it pass all stages of the trial, the arrival of a safe and effective oral insulin would likely be a multibillion-dollar product. This would mean that people who suffer from <a href="https://futurism.com/?s=diabetes">diabetes</a> no longer have to administer insulin via injections.

Hard Science

An Israeli pharma announced that its experimental oral insulin succeeded in reducing night-time blood glucose in patients with type 2 diabetes.

/Type 2 Diabetes

Health & Medicine

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Health & Medicine

A Clinical Trial Just ‘Reversed’ Type 2 Diabetes in 40% of Participants

Hard Science

New Insulin Pill Can Significantly Lower Blood Glucose for Type 2 Diabetes Patients

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