Diabetes Research Highlights

Scientific discoveries that improve human health begin with basic research, in which scientists study disease at a molecular or cellular level. Such discoveries then progress to clinical applications that benefit patients. Basic and clinical research in diabetes has contributed to improvements in diabetes diagnosis, treatment, and management, as well as better understanding of the genetic and biochemical mechanisms that lead to disease development.

Beginning with the discovery of insulin in 1921, the long history of diabetes research led to improved treatments and longer life expectancy for people with diabetes. More recent clinical studies, such as the landmark Diabetes Control and Complications Trial in 1993, proved that intensive control of blood glucose levels in people with type 1 diabetes resulted in fewer health complications and better quality of life. Another important clinical study conducted in Europe shortly afterward showed similar results in people with type 2 diabetes.

Basic and clinical research has led directly to the development of new medications that decrease insulin resistance, a condition in which the body cannot use insulin properly. One of the earlier drugs was metformin, followed by thiazolidinediones, a new class of drugs that works in a different way to improve the body’s response to insulin. These medications, known as “insulin sensitizers,” work in the liver, muscle, fat, and other tissues to increase sensitivity to insulin and overcome insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance, which can be both genetic and diet-induced, can lead to type 2 diabetes. Although insulin sensitizers are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treatment of insulin resistance before diabetes develops, these drugs have given physicians more flexibility in the care and management of insulin-resistant patients with diabetes.

Significant research is now underway to develop promising new insulin sensitizing agents, which may have also have protective effects in cardiovascular disease. 

For more information on endocrine research, see our Clinical Trials and Research page.

Editors:
Alan Schneyer, PhD
Ellen Seely, MD

January 2009