New hormone could end daily injections for diabetes

A newly discovered hormone that helps the body to produce its own insulin could provide a new treatment for diabetes and end the need for daily injections by sufferers. Researchers at Harvard University discovered that the hormone, called betatrophin, promotes the growth of cells that secrete insulin into the blood stream. The scientists found the hormone caused mice to produce these cells at 30 times the normal rate. They now believe it could be used to provide a more effective treatment for type 2 diabetes, which affects nearly 2.5 million people in the UK. Rather than having to take daily injections of insulin to control the amount of sugar in their blood, patients would need to take this new hormone just weekly or even monthly, according to the researchers. Dr Doug Melton, from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute who conducted the research, said: “If this could be used in people it could eventually mean that instead of taking insulin injections three times a day, you might take an injection of this hormone once a week or once a month, or in the best case maybe even once a year.