A New England Journal of Medicine study suggests that a medication often used to treat rheumatoid arthritis may slow the development of type 1 diabetes. Researchers at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research (SVI) have discovered that, for patients who started treatment within a year of diagnosis, the medication baricitinib can safely and effectively maintain the body’s natural ability to produce insulin and slow the progression of type 1 diabetes.
A New England Journal of Medicine study suggests that a medication often used to treat rheumatoid arthritis may slow the development of type 1 diabetes.
Researchers at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research (SVI) have discovered that, for patients who started treatment within a year of diagnosis, the medication baricitinib can safely and effectively maintain the body’s natural ability to produce insulin and slow the progression of type 1 diabetes.
Diabetes type 1 is a chronic illness in which the pancreas fails to make any insulin at all. Usually, it manifests throughout adolescence. Children and teenagers may also get the illness, depending on the number of non-functioning pancreatic B-cells. “When type 1 diabetes is first diagnosed there is a substantial number of insulin-producing cells still present. We wanted to see whether we could protect further destruction of these cells by the immune system,” said SVI’s Professor Thomas Kay. “We showed that baricitinib is safe and effective at slowing the progression of type 1 diabetes in people who have been recently diagnosed,” Kay said.
The researchers are excited
The findings show promise as the first disease-modifying treatment of its kind for type 1 diabetes that can be delivered as a tablet, the researchers said. “It is tremendously exciting for us to be the first group anywhere in the world to test the efficacy of baricitinib as a potential type 1 diabetes treatment,” said Kay. “Up until now, people with type 1 diabetes have been reliant on insulin delivered via injection or infusion pump. Our trial showed that, if started early enough after diagnosis, and while the participants remained on the medication, their production of insulin was maintained,” the researcher said.
The experiment
Over the course of a year, 91 individuals in the randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled human study of the medication baricitinib had their blood glucose and insulin production tracked. Thirty-one received a placebo and sixty received baricitinib. Every trial participant was between the ages of 10 and 30 and enrolled in the study no later than 100 days after receiving a type 1 diabetes diagnosis. According to the study, the drug-treated type 1 diabetic trial participants needed far less insulin for therapy.
According to the experts, managing chronic autoimmune disease is extremely difficult for persons who have been diagnosed as well as their families. To survive, careful glucose monitoring and insulin administration must be done day and night. “We are very optimistic that this treatment will become clinically available. This would be a huge step-change in how type 1 diabetes is managed and we believe it shows promise as a fundamental improvement in the ability to control type 1 diabetes,” said Professor Helen Thomas, preclinical lead on the trial.
By: Gursharan Kaur