University of Manchester scientists have led an international team to discover new treatments for a rare and potentially lethal childhood disease that is the clinical opposite of diabetes mellitus. Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) is a condition where the body's pancreas produces too much insulin – rather than too little as in diabetes – so understanding the disease has led to breakthroughs in diabetes treatment.
Current drug treatments for CHI often fail in the most severe forms of the disease and the patient has to have some, or most, of their pancreas removed. The Manchester researchers discovered that treating cells under specially modified conditions helped to recover the function of the internal switches that control insulin release. Through these experiments the team have provided the first evidence that the outcomes of gene defects can be reversed in human insulin-producing cells.
