Frogs may help cure diabetes

Is frog the answer to diabetes? "Yes", if researchers are to be believed.

A joint team of researchers from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland and United Arab Emirates University has discovered that a substance on the skin of South American "paradoxical frog" boosts the production of insulin -- the vital hormone that is deficient in diabetics.

The researchers have made an artificial copy of the peptide, a protein-building block that protects the frog from infection, which they hope to use to produce drugs to treat the sufferers of Type-II diabetes, The Times reported today.

"We are at an exciting stage with this research. We have tested a more potent synthetic version of the pseudin-2 peptide and found that it has the potential for development into a compound for the treatment of Type-II diabetes," lead researcher Yasser Abdel-Wahab was quoted as saying.

They carried out lab tests on the nocturnal frog that dwells in the ponds and lagoons of the Amazon and found that the paradoxical frog's peptide, pseudin-2, increased release of insulin in cultured cells by 50 per cent.

Type-II diabetes, which occurs in the middle age, is associated with lifestyle factors such as obesity. It develops because the body does not produce enough insulin or becomes resistant to the concentrations available.

However, according to the researchers, more work needs to be carried out before the therapy is ready to be tested on human patients.

"Now we need to take this a step further and put our work into practice to try and help people with Type-II diabetes. More research is needed, but there is a growing body of work around natural anti-diabetic drug discovery that is already yielding fascinating results," Abdel-Wahab said.