News & Research

    State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York

Anti-diabetic effects of liraglutide in adolescents and young Subjects with Type 1 diabetes

General Research Subject: Type 1 Diabetes

Focus: Clinical Therapeutics/New Technology

Type of Grant: Clinical Translational Research

Project Start Date: January 1, 2012

Project End Date: December 31, 2014

Research Profile

What area of diabetes research does your project cover? What role will this particular project play in preventing, treating and/or curing diabetes?

This project will explore the treatment of type 1 diabetes with liraglutide in addition to insulin. Liraglutide is currently approved for treatment of high blood sugars in patients with type 2 diabetes. We have found in preliminary studies that liraglutide decreases blood sugars as well as insulin doses in when used in type 1 diabetes patients. It also decreases the variability in blood sugars and leads to weight loss. We are now doing a randomized placebo controlled trial to further evaluate these effects.

If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?

1. This project will provide another option of treating type 1 diabetes along with insulin.
2. Liraglutide decreases variability in blood sugars in type 1 diabetes, thus leading less episodes of severe hyperglycemia Liraglutide leads to weight loss.
3. This may be beneficial in overweight or obese patients with type 1 diabetes.
4. Liraglutide may improve insulin secretion in patients with recent onset of type 1 diabetes.
5. This study will help us to understand the mechanisms behind actions of liraglutide in type 1 diabetes.

Why is it important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play in your research efforts?

1. Treatment of type 1 diabetes is often disheartening to many patients because of the variability in blood sugars in spite of the best efforts to the patient and physician to titrate insulin dosing.
2. Liraglutide decrease this variability, thus offering an option for “smoother” control.
3. This award may help establish a treatment option for type 1 diabetes patients, for who little has changed since the introduction of insulin in 1921.
4. It will expand research into glucagon suppression in type 1 diabetes.

In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?

The treatment of metabolic syndrome in type 1 diabetes. The prevention of type 1 diabetes. Understanding of GLP-1 agonists in type 1 diabetes.