There is a bright glimmer of hope in the awful world of diabetes. Funding has been secured for a clinical trial of a drug that not only prevents mice from getting type I diabetes, but actually reverses the condition if it has already taken hold.
The drug in question, Verapamil, is already used to treat hypertension, irregular heartbeats and some sorts of headaches for over 30 years.
Dr. Anath Shalev of the University of Alabama discovered that Verapamil lowers the level of the protein TXNIP in pancreatic beta cells. Shalev began to suspect TXNIP suppression might be the key to fighting diabetes, and subsequent tests in rats, mice and islets isolated from humans have lent weight to her theory.
“We have previously shown that verapamil can prevent diabetes and even reverse the disease in mouse models and reduce TXNIP in human islet beta cells, suggesting that it may have beneficial effects in humans as well,” Shalev said, announcing plans for the clinical trials.
These trials should move quickly since the drug has been on the market already for so long and although it has adverse side-effects, most are way less severe than the issues diabetes itself produces.
Read more about how this discovery may just change Diabetes forever, click here.
