Will verapamil help with diabetes?
The results of a study conducted by scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham demonstrated the ability of verapamil, a widely used drug for lowering blood pressure, to completely eliminate the symptoms of type 1 diabetes in a mouse model of this disease, as well as human insulin-producing cell cultures. In 2015, the researchers plan to start a clinical trial involving patients with this disease.
Earlier experiments by the authors showed that high blood glucose levels lead to excessive production of the TXNIP protein in the body. The fact that the concentration of TXNIP in insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas increases in diabetes mellitus has been known for a long time, but the role of this protein in the biology of beta cells was unclear until recently. It turned out that an excess of TXNIP in these cells leads to their death, which contributes to the further progression of diabetes mellitus.
However, the researchers also found that the drug verapamil, used for arterial hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias and migraines, is able to reduce the concentration of TXNIP in beta cells. Moreover, the use of the drug completely cured diabetes mellitus in a mouse model of the disease, the concentration of glucose in the blood of which was 300 mg / 100 ml – more than 2 times higher than normal.
A group of researchers led by Dr. Anath Shalev is planning to conduct a clinical study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of verapamil as a means for the treatment of type 1 diabetes in humans. A total of 52 patients aged 19 to 45 years, whose diagnosis at the time of inclusion in the study should be no more than 3 months, will participate in the study, which is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2015. Participants will be randomly divided into 2 groups, one of which will receive verapamil for a year, and the other will receive a placebo. Throughout the study, all participants will continue insulin replacement therapy. In addition, they will use the system for continuous monitoring of blood glucose levels, which will allow monitoring this indicator for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The peculiarity of this clinical study is that, unlike most clinical studies of methods of treating type 1 diabetes mellitus, during its conduct, patients will not receive immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory drugs, which often cause very serious side effects. On the contrary, an experimental drug will be a drug that has been used for other purposes for more than 30 years and obviously does not cause severe adverse reactions.
According to the researchers, ideally, taking the drug should restore the number of beta cells in the pancreas to a level sufficient to supply the body with insulin and refuse injections of this hormone. However, at least with this study, such a miraculous healing is unlikely, especially given its relatively short duration.
However, as it is known from earlier works, the preservation of even a small number of own beta cells can significantly alleviate the patient's condition. This is exactly what the researchers are counting on at this stage.
Moreover, knowledge of the mechanism of action of verapamil opens up completely new prospects in the development of new drugs for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Currently, the authors, in collaboration with colleagues from other research institutions, have already begun active work on the search for small molecules capable of inhibiting TXNIP to prevent beta cell death and cure type 1 diabetes mellitus.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of the University of Alabama at Birmingham:
In human clinical trial, UAB to test drug shown to completely reverse diabetes in human islets, mice.
10.11.2014