Yale team makes leap in treating diabetes

By Sangeetha Ramaswamy

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH Yale Medical School.

Dr. Gerald L. Schulman, a professor of endocrinology and cellular and molecular physiology at the School of Medicine, led the investigation and coordinated the research efforts. The team discovered that patients with type 2 diabetes experienced greater improvements in controlling their blood glucose levels when they took two new medications together rather than separately. Type 2 diabetes, the most common type of the disease, generally affects older individuals. "Our research offers type 2 diabetics another potential therapeutic option down the road," Schulman said.

Over the course of six months, researchers tested the efficacy of two medications, metformin and troglitazone, in 29 patients with type 2 diabetes. According to Dr. David Maggs, a former junior faculty member at the Medical School who took part in the study, "Our discovery is another interesting step in light of recent advances in diabetes research."

Maggs said that the discovery was made in early 1997 following a "fairly labor-intensive study" that began in 1996. The researchers presented their findings a few months later at an international American Diabetes Association meeting. The finding adds fuel to what Maggs called "a renaissance" in diabetes treatment over the last three years.

Researcher Dr. Silvio E. Inzucchi, an assistant professor of endocrinology at the School of Medecine and the primary author of the NEJM article, said their research was another improvement in investigating "the proper use of various diabetes drugs in combination, [and] which drug is best for which patient."

Schulman explained that the FDA must review the study's data to make sure that the results will hold for thousands of patients who could use combination therapy. "We found no problem in our study [of 29 people], but there are currently studies going on with larger numbers [of people]," he explained. He estimated that the FDA review would be completed within a year.

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