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Sugar-Breathing Glycopolymersomes for Regulating Glucose Level

53 points by uber1geek 9y ago

uber1geek 9y ago
Scientists create "sugar sponge" which can be injected into diabetics to sop up and bind glucose when glucose levels are high, and release the sugar when its concentrations are low. They also tested the sponge in mice with type-I diabetes, and within two days, they saw antidiabetic effects.
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  If that works... that's a cure, isn't it? Like, sure, there's upkeep, but automatic blood sugar regulation means 0 symptoms = functional cure.
Darvict 9y ago
Woah. This is actually potentially massive. Sugar is an epidemic.
- shiftoutbox 9y ago
  Type I diabetics have lost the natural way to regulate sugar in their blood. The have to take insulin or a insulin analog to regulate how the body will break down the sugar and starch they eat. There is a fair amount of guess work on how much insulin to take with each meal and when . If they overdose and take too much insulin they will have to consume sugar to bring their blood sugar back into normal ranges. The Sponge idea, if it could be delivered pre-loaded with sugar, it would be a great way to provide a long term low blood sugar antidote. However the idea of a type II diabetic, LADA, type III or a non-diabedic taking the normal sugarsponge would probably result in death or coma.
- lolc 9y ago
  I guess because it would be buffering sugar intake it would allow the body to keep insulin levels lower. That would help ward off type 2 Diabetes. You'd still be consuming too much sugar but the body could handle it better.
jimrandomh 9y ago
This may be a useful adjunct to insulin therapy, but there is no possibility whatsoever that it will be a replacement for it. Insulin is the molecule that signals to cells that it is okay to take in and use sugar that's in the blood. This is a molecule that buffers sugar; if there's a high sugar concentration in the blood it binds it together and if there's a low sugar concentration it releases it. This would normally be one of the functions of the liver, but the latter part (absorbing excess sugar for storage) won't happen without insulin signaling. If you give this to a type 1 diabetic without also giving insulin, all that will happen is that it'll absorb sugar until it reaches capacity; the cells that should be using sugar for energy still won't be able to.
- templaedhel 9y ago
  As a type 1 diabetic I can say (personally) the difficulties of managing my diabetes do not stem from taking insulin, that's a solved problem. Rather the difficulties come from taking the right amount at the right time. Insulin is slow acting (2-3 hours for it to fully take effect) so you're always trying to predict/aim for a moving target, and one that can shift rapidly depending on eating/exercise. If I could just set it and forget it, or even just have the ability to be 50% less accurate when calculating/planning dosage and activities, it would be a paradigm shift.
  - cperciva 9y ago
    Minor correction: Insulin has an activity time of about 5-10 minutes once it reaches your bloodstream. The challenge is getting it there; the measured activity time of insulin comes from the time it takes to diffuse through subcutaneous tissue. (This is one of the reasons why healthy individuals, whose pancreata release insulin directly into the bloodstream, have tighter blood glucose control.)
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    I find anecdotes help illustrate the problems people can face with health issues that might seem minor at first glance. My father's doctor mis-prescribed his insulin levels a few years back. His doctor forgot about the potential interaction with another drug, which is a very common problem unfortunately in medicine. The end result is that I got a call from my father who sounded as if he was experiencing a stroke, as his entire right side of his body was unresponsive and his speech was slurred and he sounded incredibly drunk. I rushed over and found him slumped in his living room unable to move and I carried him to my car for a hurried car-ride to the hospital. He got to spend that night -Christmas Eve- in the hospital for observation until they were able to determine he was ok and that the culprit was the drug-interaction. Something like $10k of his retirement fund gone because he had been laid-off and his insurance wouldn't cover this sort of thing.
amelius 9y ago
Here's a Wired story about a more controversial technique: [1]. Quoting: > His team used genetic tweaks to prevent rats from making their own pancreases. Then they injected mouse stem cells (complete with all the necessary pancreas-making genes) into the developing pancreas-less rat embryos. The rats grew normally. The only thing different was their pancreases were made almost entirely of mouse cells. > Then they went a step further. From those rat-mouse chimeras, Nakauchi’s team took out tiny clusters of pancreatic cells that make insulin (called islets) and transplanted them into diabetic mice. The islets settled in and made enough insulin to keep the host mice’s blood glucose levels in a normal range for more than a year. In layman’s terms? The mice were cured. [1] https://www.wired.com/2017/01/first-human-pig-chimera-step-toward-custom-organs/ https://www.wired.com/2017/01/first-human-pig-chimera-step-t...
lolc 9y ago
This could could make my diabetes much easier to manage. Though injecting sugar balls into my bloodstream does not sound like the first thing I will try. Testing it on mice with their short life span is bound to miss effects that take a while to accumulate. And diabetes is all about accumulating damage. I will wait for the fallout from long-term trials. (Haha, I have to anyway, it's regulated for these reasons.) But hey, wouldn't doping your blood with sugar be of interest with athletes?

53 points by uber1geek 9y ago

Scientists create "sugar sponge" which can be injected into diabetics to sop up and bind glucose when glucose levels are high, and release the sugar when its concentrations are low. They also tested the sponge in mice with type-I diabetes, and within two days, they saw antidiabetic effects.

yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
If that works... that's a cure, isn't it? Like, sure, there's upkeep, but automatic blood sugar regulation means 0 symptoms = functional cure.

Darvict 9y ago

Woah. This is actually potentially massive. Sugar is an epidemic.

shiftoutbox 9y ago
Type I diabetics have lost the natural way to regulate sugar in their blood. The have to take insulin or a insulin analog to regulate how the body will break down the sugar and starch they eat. There is a fair amount of guess work on how much insulin to take with each meal and when . If they overdose and take too much insulin they will have to consume sugar to bring their blood sugar back into normal ranges. The Sponge idea, if it could be delivered pre-loaded with sugar, it would be a great way to provide a long term low blood sugar antidote. However the idea of a type II diabetic, LADA, type III or a non-diabedic taking the normal sugarsponge would probably result in death or coma.
lolc 9y ago
I guess because it would be buffering sugar intake it would allow the body to keep insulin levels lower. That would help ward off type 2 Diabetes. You'd still be consuming too much sugar but the body could handle it better.

jimrandomh 9y ago

This may be a useful adjunct to insulin therapy, but there is no possibility whatsoever that it will be a replacement for it. Insulin is the molecule that signals to cells that it is okay to take in and use sugar that's in the blood. This is a molecule that buffers sugar; if there's a high sugar concentration in the blood it binds it together and if there's a low sugar concentration it releases it. This would normally be one of the functions of the liver, but the latter part (absorbing excess sugar for storage) won't happen without insulin signaling. If you give this to a type 1 diabetic without also giving insulin, all that will happen is that it'll absorb sugar until it reaches capacity; the cells that should be using sugar for energy still won't be able to.

templaedhel 9y ago
As a type 1 diabetic I can say (personally) the difficulties of managing my diabetes do not stem from taking insulin, that's a solved problem. Rather the difficulties come from taking the right amount at the right time. Insulin is slow acting (2-3 hours for it to fully take effect) so you're always trying to predict/aim for a moving target, and one that can shift rapidly depending on eating/exercise. If I could just set it and forget it, or even just have the ability to be 50% less accurate when calculating/planning dosage and activities, it would be a paradigm shift.
- cperciva 9y ago
  Minor correction: Insulin has an activity time of about 5-10 minutes once it reaches your bloodstream. The challenge is getting it there; the measured activity time of insulin comes from the time it takes to diffuse through subcutaneous tissue. (This is one of the reasons why healthy individuals, whose pancreata release insulin directly into the bloodstream, have tighter blood glucose control.)
- wavefunction 9y ago
  I find anecdotes help illustrate the problems people can face with health issues that might seem minor at first glance. My father's doctor mis-prescribed his insulin levels a few years back. His doctor forgot about the potential interaction with another drug, which is a very common problem unfortunately in medicine. The end result is that I got a call from my father who sounded as if he was experiencing a stroke, as his entire right side of his body was unresponsive and his speech was slurred and he sounded incredibly drunk. I rushed over and found him slumped in his living room unable to move and I carried him to my car for a hurried car-ride to the hospital. He got to spend that night -Christmas Eve- in the hospital for observation until they were able to determine he was ok and that the culprit was the drug-interaction. Something like $10k of his retirement fund gone because he had been laid-off and his insurance wouldn't cover this sort of thing.

amelius 9y ago

Here's a Wired story about a more controversial technique: [1]. Quoting: > His team used genetic tweaks to prevent rats from making their own pancreases. Then they injected mouse stem cells (complete with all the necessary pancreas-making genes) into the developing pancreas-less rat embryos. The rats grew normally. The only thing different was their pancreases were made almost entirely of mouse cells. > Then they went a step further. From those rat-mouse chimeras, Nakauchi’s team took out tiny clusters of pancreatic cells that make insulin (called islets) and transplanted them into diabetic mice. The islets settled in and made enough insulin to keep the host mice’s blood glucose levels in a normal range for more than a year. In layman’s terms? The mice were cured. [1] https://www.wired.com/2017/01/first-human-pig-chimera-step-toward-custom-organs/ https://www.wired.com/2017/01/first-human-pig-chimera-step-t...

lolc 9y ago

This could could make my diabetes much easier to manage. Though injecting sugar balls into my bloodstream does not sound like the first thing I will try. Testing it on mice with their short life span is bound to miss effects that take a while to accumulate. And diabetes is all about accumulating damage. I will wait for the fallout from long-term trials. (Haha, I have to anyway, it's regulated for these reasons.) But hey, wouldn't doping your blood with sugar be of interest with athletes?