diabetes treatment

Probiotic treats diabetes in rats, could lead to human remedy

Lowers glucose levels by 30 percent; could be delivered as pill instead of injections

January 29, 2015

This image shows a rat intestinal epithelial cell reprogrammed to express insulin (green). The cell nucleus is stained blue. (Credit: Franklin F. Duan et al./Diabetes)

Imagine a pill that helps people control diabetes with the body’s own insulin to lower blood glucose levels.

Cornell researchers have achieved this feat in rats by engineering human lactobacilli, a common gut bacteria, to secrete a protein that modifies intestinal cells to produce insulin..

A 2003 study led by Atsushi Suzuki of the University of Tsukuba, Japan, first demonstrated that when exposed to a protein called Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), intestinal epithelial cells (which cover the guts) are converted into insulin-producing cells.