Pre-Clinical Study Succeeds In Treating Diabetes Using Ultrasound

Promising new research has raised the possibility of treating type 2 diabetes without drugs and scientists have used three different animal models to prove that short bursts of ultrasound targeted at specific clusters of nerves in the liver can effectively lower insulin and glucose levels, Rich Haridy reported for New Atlas.

Photo Insert: GE Research's Bioelectronic Medicine team members

Reporting in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, a team led by GE Research, including investigators from the Yale School of Medicine, UCLA, and the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, demonstrated a unique non-invasive ultrasound method designed to stimulate specific sensory nerves in the liver.

The technology is called peripheral focused ultrasound stimulation (pFUS) and it allows highly targeted ultrasound pulses to be directed at specific tissue containing nerve endings.

“We used this technique to explore stimulation of an area of the liver called the porta hepatis,” the researchers explained in a Nature briefing.

“This region contains the hepatoportal nerve plexus, which communicates information on glucose and nutrient status to the brain but has been difficult to study as its nerve structures are too small to separately stimulate with implanted electrodes.”

The newly published study indicates short targeted bursts of pFUS at this area of the liver successfully reversed the onset of hyperglycemia. The treatment was found to be effective in three separate animal models of diabetes: mice, rats and pigs.

“Unfortunately, there are currently only very few drugs that lower insulin levels,” explained Raimund Herzog, a Yale School of Medicine endocrinologist working on the project.

“If our ongoing clinical trials confirm the promise of the preclinical studies reported in this paper, and ultrasound can be used to lower both insulin and glucose levels, ultrasound neuromodulation would represent an exciting and entirely new addition to the current treatment options for our patients.”

The study found just three minutes of focused ultrasound each day was enough to maintain normal blood glucose levels in the diabetic animals. Studies in humans are currently underway to work out whether this method translates from animal studies.

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