TUESDAY, Mar 4, (News Locale) - In a major breakthrough for treating type 2 diabetes, Irish researchers in collaboration with the United Arab Emirates University revealed that a compound found on the skin of a South American frog can be utilized in developing the next generation of diabetes drugs. 

After conducting a number of tests on the paradoxical frog, usually found in the Amazon region in South America, researchers found that a chemical compound, known as pseudin-2, boosts the secretion of insulin hormone in the cultured pancreatic cells by more than 50 percent.

The researchers have managed to develop an artificial copy of the peptide which could be used in developing new drugs for type 2 diabetes patients. The artificial version of the peptide was found to be more effective than the natural version that protects the frog from infection. However they cautioned that more tests have to be carried out in order to ascertain that the same effect occurs in humans as well.

"We found that it stimulated the secretion of insulin and that the synthetic version is more potent that pseudin-2 itself. More research is needed, but there is a growing body of work around natural anti-diabetic drug discovery that, as you can see, is already yielding fascinating results", said Dr Yasser Abdel-Wahab, the lead researcher and a senior lecturer in biomedical sciences at the University of Ulster.

More and more researchers are studying the effects of amphibian skin secretions in controlling diabetes with moderate levels of success. Researchers have recently developed a new drug called exenatide by using a hormone present in the saliva of a lizard found in southern areas of United States and northern Mexico.

Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes and often occurs in adults who are 40 years old. Patients suffering from this type of diabetes are unable to secrete enough levels of insulin hormone that is needed to convert sugar into energy.

This leads to a dangerous condition called nonketonic hyperglycemia where in patients suffer from extreme dehydration, decreased periods of consciousness and very high level of glucose in the blood.

High level of glucose in blood can be controlled by following strict diet and regular exercise. However the condition worsens over time and medication is required to control it effectively. 

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