VOA标准英语2011--Antibody Could Reverse Diabetes

Antibody Could Reverse Diabetes¹

 

Scientists in California have developed a new approach to treating diabetes which might be able to reverse the disease and not just treat the symptoms.

The World Health Organization estimates that more than one-third of a billion people worldwide have diabetes. The most common form of the disease, type 2 diabetes, is on the rise. It's usually the result of excess weight and lack of physical exercise.

The pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin, which regulates sugar in the blood. The excess sugar can affect the heart and blood vessels², eyes, and other organs.

Treatment includes losing weight and exercising. Some patients take insulin or other medicines.

At the California biotechnology company Genentech, researchers have been investigating a growth factor protein called FGF21, which is involved in controlling blood sugar.

Junichiro Sonoda says previous studies have shown that when FGF21 is injected into laboratory mice and monkeys, it has a variety of beneficial effects. "Well, the animals lose weight, and cholesterol³, which increases cardiovascular risk, now goes down. And there's a good cholesterol called HDL, which level goes up with FGF21 treatment."

The most common form of diabetes, type 2, occurs when the pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin, which regulates sugar in the blood. The excess sugar can affect the heart and blood vessels, eyes and other organs.

Efforts to get the same effect in humans have been stymied⁴ by the fact that the effect lasts only a few hours. "So that means, to get the beneficial effect you have to inject a lot of it and many times during the day."

So the Japanese-born researcher and his colleagues tried a different approach. They developed antibodies that mimic⁵ FGF21 by attaching to the same receptors in the pancreas and elsewhere, and they tested it on mice.

"The blood glucose⁶ level got normalized. And we kept monitoring blood glucose after a single injection of this antibody, and it took almost 40 days for the blood glucose level to come back to a 'normal' diabetic level," Sonoda said.

That kind of long-lasting effect is one of the things that drug developers look for. "This could become the very first class of drug that could reverse the disease instead of just treat the symptoms of disease. That would be a huge benefit for patients."

Junichiro Sonoda says further work is needed on this potential antibody-based treatment for diabetes before moving on to human testing. A paper describing the research is published in Science Translational Medicine.

1 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

2 vessels   

n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人

参考例句：

• The river is navigable by vessels of up to 90 tons. 90 吨以下的船只可以从这条河通过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All modern vessels of any size are fitted with radar installations. 所有现代化船只都有雷达装置。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 cholesterol   

n.（U）胆固醇

参考例句：

• There is cholesterol in the cell of body.人体细胞里有胆固醇。
• They are determining the serum-protein and cholesterol levels.他们正在测定血清蛋白和胆固醇的浓度。

4 stymied   

n.被侵袭的v.妨碍，阻挠( stymie的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Relief efforts have been stymied in recent weeks by armed gunmen. 最近几周的救援工作一直受到武装分子的阻挠。 来自辞典例句
• I was completely stymied by her refusal to help. 由于她拒不相助， 我完全陷入了困境。 来自互联网

5 mimic   

v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人

参考例句：

• A parrot can mimic a person's voice.鹦鹉能学人的声音。
• He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another.他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。

6 glucose   

n.葡萄糖

参考例句：

• I gave him an extra dose of glucose to pep him up.我给他多注射了一剂葡萄糖以增强他的活力。
• The doctor injected glucose into his patient's veins.医生将葡萄糖注入病人的静脉。