A new treatment for people with diabetes type 2 and developed by Dutch doctors,
could mean an end to insulin injections for thousands of patients, the ADreported on Wednesday.
Researchers at Amsterdam’s UMC teaching hospital have
developed a system to improve patients’ blood sugar levels by using a process
known as mucosal resurfacing.
A balloon is inserted via their mouths to the top
of their small intestine where it is inflated with hot water which burns away
the mucous membrane. A new membrane is formed within one or two weeks which
improves the blood sugar level, delaying the need to inject new insulin, or
doing away with the need altogether.
So far, 50 patients have undergone trials
of the balloon system and the results are ‘promising’, the researchers told the
paper.
In 90% of the patients, the disease was stable after a year. They still
take medicine but have a lower risk of heart and artery disease, kidney
failure, blindness and the loss of feeling in hands and feet, the researchers
say.
A new international research project involving 100 patients is now being
started.
Ultimately, the system could be suitable for 70,000 diabetes patients
who get little benefit from pills and have to inject insulin, the paper said.
Around one million people in the Netherlands have diabetes, of whom 700,000
have the type 2 variant of the disease.
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