“Rheumatoid arthritis drug baricitinib is also effective in type 1 diabetes.”

Delivery time2023-12-11 09:14

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Seonggan Han = Research results have shown that the rheumatoid arthritis treatment baricitinib (product name: Olumiant) is effective in suppressing the progression of type 1 diabetes.

What rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes have in common is that they are both autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune disease is a disease that occurs when the immune system mistakes its own organs, tissues, and cells as foreign substances and attacks them.

Unlike degenerative arthritis (osteoarthritis), which commonly occurs in the elderly, rheumatoid arthritis occurs when T cells, a type of immune cell, attack joints in the body, such as the wrists, fingers, toes, ankles, and knees.

Type 1 diabetes occurs when the immune system attacks the beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, causing very little or no insulin to be produced.

Baricitinib is a drug that inhibits Janus Kinase-2 (JAK-2), an enzyme that causes autoimmunity and inflammation, and was approved by the FDA in 2018 as a treatment for moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.

HealthDay News reported on the 9th that Professor Thomas Kay’s research team at the St Vincent’s Medical Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, announced the results of a study showing that starting baricitinib treatment immediately after diagnosis of type 1 diabetes can maintain pancreatic insulin secretion. .

The research team announced that these results were obtained from a phase 2 clinical trial conducted for one year on 91 patients (ages 10 to 30) who were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes less than 100 days ago.

The research team randomly divided them into two groups and administered baricitinib to 60 people and placebo to 31 people for 48 weeks.

The clinical trial was conducted in a double-blind manner in which neither the researchers nor the patients knew which of the two groups belonged to which group.

Participating patients continued to receive insulin treatment throughout the trial.

The results showed that the insulin administration dose in the baricitinib group was significantly reduced compared to the control group. However, it was not to the point where insulin treatment was completely unnecessary.

The research team measured postprandial C-peptide blood levels, which are the standard for measuring insulin secretion ability, after 48 weeks.

As a result, the average blood C-peptide level was 0.65 nmol/L/min in the baricitinib group and 0.43 nmol/L/min in the control group.

The research team explained that this suggests that the insulin secretion ability of beta cells is preserved and the progression of diabetes is being suppressed.

In addition, the baricitinib group also improved blood sugar levels.

Blood sugar volatility was 29.6% in the baricitinib group and 33.8% in the control group.

Side effects were similar in frequency and intensity in both groups. There were no serious side effects.

Although further research is needed, the research team said they are optimistic that baricitinib can be used clinically in the early stages of type 1 diabetes.

The research team speculated that baricitinib appears to alleviate the ‘runaway immune response’ that destroys pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin by inhibiting enzymes involved in immune system regulation and inflammation.

When type 1 diabetes is first diagnosed, a significant number of insulin-producing beta cells still remain, so the research team wanted to find out through clinical trials whether baricitinib could protect beta cells from further destruction, they said.

The results of this study were published in the latest issue of the American medical journal ‘New England Journal of Medicine’.

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2023/12/11 09:14 Sent