The Surprising Diabetes Treatment That May Nix Your Need for Insulin
A new study revealed that a new regimen of diabetes treatments may eliminate some patients' need for insulin injections.
Re-Cellularization via Electroporation Therapy (known as ReCET), when combined with semaglutide (the active ingredient in weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy and the like) showed massive positive changes in patients with type 2 diabetes, United European Gastroenterology (UEG) reported in UEG Week 2024.
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ReCET procedure is an endoscopic treatment that creates small, permanent holes in cell membranes. ReCET doesn't generate heat, which other similar treatments do, and thereby prevents damage in surrounding cells in deeper layers. The procedure makes the body more sensitive to the insulin that the body produces naturally.
The study, the first of its kind done in humans, was a small one, though: There were 14 individual participants with type 2 diabetes, ranging in age from 28 to 75 years old; they had body mass indices (BMIs) ranging from 24 to 40. (A generally healthy BMI is considered to be between 18.5 and 25, though in terms of a measurement for health, there are plenty of caveats with BMI as a whole, including muscle mass and the question of weight distribution.)
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Patients in the study were sedated and given ReCET treatment, then went on a liquid diet for two weeks. During this period, patients were put on semaglutide regimens in which their dosage was gradually increased over time. The participants were then monitored over the course of a year to see how their health progressed.
According to the study, 86% of participants (12 out of the 14) no longer needed insulin therapy at six-month and one-year check-ins. What's more, no patients showed any adverse reactions to the ReCET treatment, though one got too nauseous from the semaglutide medication to take it at the highest recommended dose.
"These findings are very encouraging, suggesting that ReCET is a safe and feasible procedure that, when combined with semaglutide, can effectively eliminate the need for insulin therapy," study author and gastroenterology researcher Celine Busch said in a statement.
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Busch added that one bonus of the ReCET treatment was that there was no need for patients to take a daily medication (like insulin) afterward, which makes managing their type 2 diabetes easier. That wasn't even the best news, however.
"The treatment is disease-modifying: it improves the patient's sensitivity to their own (endogenous) insulin, tackling the root cause of the disease, as opposed to currently available drug therapies, that are at best disease-controlling," she explained. Essentially, ReCET and semaglutide were able to reverse the disease for the participants.
More studies need to be done on the combination of ReCET and semaglutide for type 2 diabetes, but these developments are promising for patients who'd love nothing more than to go through life without the idea of having to inject (and at times, potentially ration) insulin every day.
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Sources
“Durable effects of duodenal ablation using electroporation combined with semaglutide to eliminate insulin therapy in patients with type-2 diabetes; the 24-month results.” C.B.E Busch et al., 14 October 2024, UEG Week 2024.