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A drug developed by a group of US scientists that targets the immune system may delay the onset of type 1 diabetes in people at high risk of developing the disease, a recent study found.
A group of scientists from Yale University conducted research on 76 participants aged 8 to 49, all with a parent with type 1 diabetes. Participants randomly selected for two weeks received the drug "teplizumab", which disrupts the destruction by the immune system of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas, process leading to type 1 diabetes. The other participants received a placebo.
The study found that individuals in the treatment group who developed type 1 diabetes did so on average two years later than those who received the placebo. The results also showed that a much lower percentage of individuals in the treatment group, 43%, developed type 1 diabetes compared to 72% in the placebo group.
"This is the first demonstration that an immunological treatment can delay the clinical onset of the disease," said Dr. Kevan Herold, senior scientist and professor of immunobiology and medicine at the Yale School of Medicine.
Herold pointed out that the delay is important because the risk of developing the disease decreases with age and a delay thus slows the progression of type 1 diabetes in adolescents and young adults at risk.
"These children are going through a critical period in their development, so having diabetes for two years, seven years, or even a year is a big problem, and the personal benefits are real," he said.
Delaying the disease could help high-risk people go through a period of vulnerability, Herold added.
The results of the study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented on June 9 at the 79th Scientific Session of the American Diabetes Association in San Francisco.
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