n mice with diet-induced diabetes — the equivalent of type 2 diabetes in humans — a single injection of the protein FGF1 is enough to restore blood sugar levels to a healthy range for more than two days. The discovery by Salk scientists, published today in the journal Nature, could lead to a new generation of safer, more effective diabetes drugs.
The team found that sustained treatment with the protein doesn’t merely keep blood sugar under control, but also reverses insulin insensitivity, the underlying physiological cause of diabetes. Equally exciting, the newly developed treatment doesn’t result in side effects common to most current diabetes treatments.
Sounds good, but I can’t even remember how many things looked good in mice, but didn’t make the jump into effective human treatments. A lot, though. Remember CLAs? In fat mice they reduced body fat by more than fifty percent. In humans they don’t do much at all.