Human trials have begun on a new type 1 diabetes treatment that could improve the lives of future sufferers of the disease.
Developed by scientists at the University of Cambridge, the treatment could reduce a patient's insulin injections from several per day to potentially just a few times a week.
The immunological treatment slows damage to the pancreas, meaning that newly diagnosed patients, in future, may be able to retain the ability to produce insulin naturally. "Our aim is [...] to rebalance the immune system so that patients can significantly reduce the number of insulin injections needed to just once or twice a week by slowing the progression of the disease," says Frank Waldron-Lynch, clinical study lead at the University of Cambridge.
Type 1 diabetes is caused when the body's immune system attacks insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Around 400,000 people in the UK suffer from the disease. Unlike type 2 diabetes, it is not triggered by lifestyle factors like obesity.
Over the last ten years researchers at Cambridge, led by Professor John Todd, have identified the IL-2 gene pathway as one of the origins of the disease. The pathway codes the protein "interleukin-2", which controls the regulatory part of the immune system.
Low levels of interleukin-2 result in an unbalanced immune system, resulting in damage to the pancreas.
This damage reduces and eventually destroys the pancreas' ability to create insulin, causing type 1 diabetes. Sufferers of the disease require injections of artificial insulin on a regular basis, usually before or after eating meals.
Waldron-Lynch and his colleagues, with support from the Wellcome Trust, are investigating whether injections of interleukin-2, in the form of a drug called aldesleukin, can slow the damage caused by the immune system.
By preferentially boosting the regulatory part of the immune system, he says, they hope patients will be able to retain the ability to produce their own insulin, reducing the need for artificial insulin injections.
It is unlike immunosuppression treatments, which dampen the immune system generally. Injections of interleukin-2 simply boost the number of regulatory T-cells.
The trial, run jointly by researchers at Addenbrooke's Hospital and Cambridge University's Institute for Medical Research, began in May and currently has six patients. Early results are positive, with no side-effects detected, says Waldron-Lynch. The study aims to find out what doses are most effective, and how regular injections of the drug will need to be -- once a week or once every two weeks may be possible, he says.
The treatment will only be useful to patients in the early stages of type 1 diabetes, up to two years after diagnosis, before damage to the pancreas becomes too extensive. (The team are looking for more patients to join the trial -- more details can be found here).
Injections of interleukin-2 have also been investigated as a possible way of treating graft-vs-host disease, where the body attacks stem cell or bone marrow transfusions, or other tissue transplants.
Advanced forms of long-lasting artificial insulin also reduce the number of injections a patient needs to take, with one, "degludec", allowing for injections only three times a week.
However, these long-lasting insulins don't address the problem of damage to the pancreas and have the potential side effect of hypoglycaemia, or low blood sugar levels.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
