Tablet treatment could end child diabetes, says researcher

‘We will see the day in the not-too-distant future when we’ll eradicate the disease completely,’ said Professor Chantal Mathieu, based at the University of Leuven in Belgium.

The treatment was originally devised as a way to control the progression of the disease without using injections.

Type-1 diabetes, traditionally termed ‘juvenile diabetes’ because a majority of cases were in children, also affects adults and usually requires that the sufferer injects themselves with insulin several times each day as their body often stops being able to produce the blood sugar controlling hormone.

So far, the new treatment has been tested on mice, but Prof. Mathieu believes it will soon start benefiting youngsters.

‘The first tests on humans will start very shortly,’ she said.

Type-1 diabetes affects about two million people in the European Union and it is growing at a rate of about 3 % per year. It is often caused by genetic susceptibility, unlike the most common form of the disease, known as Type-2 diabetes, which can results from a lifestyle of unhealthy food and lack of exercise.