Cancer drug protects against (Type 1) diabetes (in mice)
DIABETES New research shows that low doses of a cancer drug protect against the development of type 1 diabetes in mice. At the same time, the medicine protects the insulin-producing cells from being destroyed. The study is headed by researchers from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, and has just been published in the distinguished scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
Very low doses of a drug used to treat certain types of cancer protect the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas and prevent the development of diabetes mellitus type 1 in mice. The medicine works by lowering the level of so-called sterile inflammation. The findings have been made by researchers from the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark and the University of Southern Denmark working with researchers in Belgium, Italy, Canada, Netherlands and the USA.
"Diabetes is a growing problem worldwide. Our research shows that very low doses of anticancer drugs used to treat lymphoma – so-called lysine deacetylase inhibitors – can reset the immune response to not attack the insulin-producing cells. We find fewer immune cells in the pancreas, and more insulin is produced when we give the medicine in the drinking water to mice that would otherwise develop type 1 diabetes," says postdoc Dan Ploug Christensen, who is the first author on the article and responsible for the part of the experimental work carried out in Professor Thomas Mandrup-Poulsen’s laboratory at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.
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http://news.ku.dk/all_news/2014/01/cancer-drug-protects-against-diabetes/
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