If you could explain it in layman's terms Andy, that would be appreciated. I registered online and read the article but foudn some of it a bit confusing.🙂
Cheers
Rob
I'll do my best, but can only really pull out the main points of the article.
It seems that recent experiments in mice at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas may give the hope that regular insulin shots and regular glucose monitoring may be consigned to medical history books.
Insulin clears surplus glucose from the blood wheras glucagon does the opposite ordering the liver to release stores of glucose or to make more if none is available.
The research used engineered mice lacking glucagon receptors so they couldn't respond to the hormone. When tested, the mice had normal levels of blood glucose.
Then, the team destroyed the pancreatic beta cells in the mice (the swine!). Again, when tested, the mice had normal levels of blood glucose.
Other diabetes reasearchers are encouraged but cautious about the developments. They wonder whether the results are just relevant to rodents and may not be applicable to people. They also wonder where the surplus glucose goes in the mice lacking both insulin and glucagon [receptors]. This is something the guys at Dallas are looking at using labelled glucose. They believe that it is still stored in the liver, but this then raises the further question as to what happens when it is "full up".
Finally, another researcher made the point that the mice didn't have any glucagon activity from birth. He asked the question as to whether the effect would be different if the hormone was subsequently blocked in humans or animals.
There was more stuff about GLP-1, but that's getting too technical for me!