IIT Mandi Researchers Find Potential Method To Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

New Delhi: Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Saturday congratulated researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi for their discovery of a potential method to reverse type 2 diabetes.

“Diabetes is a common disease in India and this research will help in providing aid to people suffering from the disease. Very proud of IIT Mandi for this innovation,” the minister tweeted.

According to a PTI report, the researchers have found that a drug used to treat opioid addiction can reverse some of the adverse effects of type 2 diabetes.

The team has unravelled the mechanism by which insulin overload in the body causes insulin resistance that is associated with diabetes. The results of the research work, which was funded by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), were recently published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

“Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, is used by cells to absorb glucose from the blood. Type 2 diabetes results when cells lose their ability to use insulin due to a variety of reasons. Insulin resistance is intricately linked to a condition called hyperinsulinemia, in which there is excess insulin traversing the bloodstream. The relationship between insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia is cyclic – each increases the occurrence of the other,” Associate Professor at School of Basic Sciences, IIT Mandi, Prosenjit Mondal, said.

“While it is obvious how insulin resistance leads to hyperinsulinemia — when cells cannot use the insulin, it just remains in the blood — the converse of how hyperinsulinemia increases insulin resistance has hitherto remained unclear. We have known that one of the causes of insulin resistance is inflammation,” he added.

The researchers identified a critical protein molecule, SIRT1, which is repressed in hyperinsulinemia. “The team has found that low dose naltrexone (LDN), a drug commonly administered for opiate addiction, can activate SIRT1, thereby reducing inflammation and increasing insulin sensitivity of cells. The significance of this discovery is enormous,” Mondal said.

Naltrexone is already a Food and Drug Administration-approved drug that is used for the treatment of opioid addiction and can easily be repurposed for inflammation reduction and diabetes control.