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A joint research team of Korean and U.S. scientists has achieved what could be a breakthrough in diabetes treatment without insulin injections. The research teams of Prof. Park Byung-hyun of Korea's Chonbuk University and Prof. Roger Unger of the Southwestern Medical Center at the University of Texas announced that they succeeded in maintaining normal blood sugar level for 80 days by injecting leptin, a protein hormone, in mice with type 1 diabetes.
The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday, with Park named as a second author.
The conventional way to treat diabetes has been to inject insulin to lower blood sugar level. Park and Unger, however, worked toward preventing the formation of blood sugar. They discovered that leptin removed glucagon, a hormone involved in carbohydrate metabolism, and thus lowered the blood sugar level. ¡°Diabetes among adults usually comes from obesity, so we thought leptin, which is used to treat overweight patients, could be useful in treating diabetes,¡± Park said.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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