Same mechanism behind both forms of diabetes

Both major forms of diabetes -- type-1 and type-2 -- result from the same mechanism, suggests a 20-year-long research.

Researchers form Universities of Manchester and Auckland found that type-1 and type-2 diabetes both are caused by the formation of toxic clumps of a hormone called amylin.

Diabetes is caused when the pancreas stops producing two hormones, insulin and amylin, which regulate glucose in the blood.

However, some of the amylin that is produced can get deposited around cells in the pancreas as toxic clumps which then, in turn, destroy those cells that produce insulin and amylin.

The consequence of this cell death is diabetes.

"The difference is that the disease starts at an earlier age and progresses more rapidly in type-1 compared to type-2 diabetes because there is more rapid deposition of toxic amylin clumps in the pancreas," researchers noted.

The team expects to have potential medicines ready to go into clinical trials in the next two years and it is anticipated that these will be tested in both type-1 and type-2 diabetic patients.

The research was published in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.