Scientists Make Progress Toward Better Diabetes Treatment, Cure

Scientists Make Progress Toward Better Diabetes¹ Treatment, Cure

Excess sugar, or glucose², in your blood is not good. But a healthy body regulates it through insulin, produced in the organ called the pancreas.

If the body fails to do that, either because of genetics or an unhealthy lifestyle, diabetics have to adopt a grueling routine of constant monitoring of blood sugar and injecting insulin for the rest of their lives.

Both insulin monitors and delivery devices, called insulin pumps, are available, but so far, creating an automatic injector that does not require monitoring has proved to be a difficult problem.

After working on it for almost 20 years, scientists at Harvard University say they may be close to solving it.

“In essence, we use a patient model, a computational model, a mathematical model, to forecast into the future," said Harvard's Frank Doyle, a professor of engineering and applied⁴ sciences. "So we get a sense of how past insulin affects future glucose, how the past trajectory⁵ of glucose is going to play out for the next hour or two.”

Scientists say automatic insulin pumps should be on the market within five years.

What about a cure?

Finding a cure for diabetes would be even better, and laboratory mice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may hold the key.

In the type of diabetes caused by genetic³ disposition⁶, the human immune system kills pancreas cells that produce insulin. A gelatin-like substance engineered in an MIT lab shields those cells from the attack.

“We can take these human islets from stem cells and actually cure these diabetic mice for months," said Daniel Anderson, a professor of applied biology at MIT. "We have also shown that in primates⁷ we can put these little balls of new material in the abdominal⁸ space of primates and see that they don't form scar tissue, which is an important step towards thinking of using them in people.”

Scientists are optimistic that one way or another, or maybe with a combination of approaches, they will bring relief to diabetes sufferers within a few years.

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 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。

3 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

4 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

5 trajectory   

n.弹道，轨道

参考例句：

• It is not difficult to sketch the subsequent trajectory.很容易描绘出它们最终的轨迹。
• The path followed by a projectile is called its trajectory.抛物体所循的路径称为它的轨道。

6 disposition   

n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署

参考例句：

• He has made a good disposition of his property.他已对财产作了妥善处理。
• He has a cheerful disposition.他性情开朗。

7 primates   

primate的复数

参考例句：

• Primates are alert, inquisitive animals. 灵长目动物是机灵、好奇的动物。
• Consciousness or cerebration has been said to have emerged in the evolution of higher primates. 据说意识或思考在较高级灵长类的进化中已出现。

8 abdominal   

adj.腹（部）的，下腹的；n.腹肌

参考例句：

• The abdominal aorta is normally smaller than the thoracic aorta.腹主动脉一般比胸主动脉小。
• Abdominal tissues sometimes adhere after an operation.手术之后腹部有时会出现粘连。