Study: Capsules may help diabetics

WORLD / Health

Study: Capsules may help diabetics

(AP)
Updated: 2007-07-30 11:30

WASHINGTON - Tiny capsules made from seaweed and iron may help diabetics
whose bodies reject insulin-cell transplants.

Researchers trying to understand why those transplants work for some
people with Type I diabetes, but not for others, found success in
experiments with mice and pigs.

Type I diabetes is the type usually beginning in childhood. It occurs
when a person's immune system destroys the cells in the pancreas that
make insulin.

The American Diabetic Association estimated that 20.8 million Americans
have diabetes, though not all cases have been diagnosed. Between 5
percent and 10 percent of those are Type I, according to the National
Diabetes Education Program.

Insulin helps the body process sugar. Without it, sugar levels in the
blood rise and can result in complications such as blindness or kidney
failure.

Injections of insulin can help if the patient carefully monitors blood
sugar levels. Transplanting new insulin cells might be more effective,
unless they, too, are destroyed.

Insulin-cell transplants remain an experimental procedure. The
Collaborative Islet Transplant Registry reports just 319 cases in North
America between 1999 and 2005.

In an effort to learn what happens to transplanted cells, researchers
from Johns Hopkins University encapsulated them in a matrix made from
alginate - derived from seaweed - and an iron-containing material so they
could track the cells magnetically.

"It's very exciting, because now you will be able to see what's going on
with all these cells. We hope it will help us understand the disease
process and what's been going on," Dr. Aravind Arepally, an assistant
professor of radiology and surgery at Hopkins, said in a telephone
interview.

Their findings were published online Sunday in the journal Nature
Medicine.

The porous capsules had openings large enough to let insulin out for the
body to use, but not big enough for immune cells to get in and attack the
transplants.

In the first experiment, the capsules - less than one hundred
twenty-eighths of an inch across - were implanted in diabetic mice. The
researchers said the blood sugar levels of the mice returned to normal in
about a week. More than half of the mice that did not receive transplants
died.

Researchers then moved on to swine. Capsules were implanted in the liver
rather than the pancreas because the liver has more blood vessels that
can carry the insulin to the rest of the body.

The team threaded a long needle-like tube into a large vein near the
upper thigh and guided the tube upward, across and into a neighboring
blood vessel and then into the liver.

Three weeks later, the capsules were still in place and were releasing
insulin at usable levels, the researchers reported.

Co-author Jeff Bulte, professor of radiology and chemical and
biomolecular engineering, said the hope is that the capsules will reduce
the need for anti-rejection drugs in people receiving transplants.

Arepally said the researchers are beginning a longer-term trial in pigs
and are working with a private company to begin the process of seeking
Food and Drug Administration approval.

Dr. Larry C. Deeb, president of the American Diabetes Association, said
it is fascinating that researchers could track the implants.

"That doesn't mean you can make it work to cure diabetes," he said.
"These are the kinds of things where you do research and find something
interesting and see where it leads you."

"I tell my patients that we're beating down the doors, slowly but
surely," in the search for a cure, said Deeb, a pediatric endocrinologist
in Tallahassee, Fla.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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