Glutamic acid decarboxylase may help

[admin]

Treatment with alum-formulated glutamic acid decarboxylase contributed to the preservation of residual insulin secretion in patients with recent-onset type 1 diabetes, but did not change the insulin requirement in a recent study.

The researchers from Linköping University in Sweden and other sites randomly assigned 70 patients with type 1 diabetes to injections of 20 mcg of glutamic acid decarboxylase–alum (n=35) or placebo/alum alone (n=35). Patients had fasting C-peptide levels >0.1 nmol/L and glutamic acid decarboxylase autoantibodies. They were enrolled within 18 months after receiving the diagnosis of diabetes, according to the researchers.

Insulin secretion gradually decreased in both groups, but the treatment had no significant effect on change in fasting C-peptide after 15 months, according to the researchers.

After 30 months, C-peptide levels decreased by –0.21 nmol/L in the glutamic acid decarboxylase-alum group vs. the placebo group (–0.27 nmol/L; P=.045). Stimulated secretion measured as area under the curve was –0.72 nmol/L/two hours in the glutamic acid decarboxylase–alum group compared with the placebo group (–1.02 nmol/L/two hours; P=.04).

“Our results provide preliminary proof of concept; large-scale confirmatory studies with glutamic acid decarboxylase–alum are underway in Europe and the United States,” the researchers wrote. – by Christen Haigh