Diabetes rises in Africa. Can it lead to new breakthroughs?

Chikowore says there are many potential explanations for this, starting from the genetic variables that are not yet discovered to the physiological structure of the pancreas. The last theory arises from Research conducted in East AfricaWhich found that some men develop type 2 diabetes, although there is a healthy weight. and Continuous study Led by the Medical Research Council in Uganda, in partnership with researchers in the United Kingdom, it measures the size of the pancreas in these men and evaluate its function.

“These situations do not seem to be fat, so we want to try to understand what is going on,” says Chicouor. “Is it genetics? Or because of how the pancreas developed? Some scientists believe that it is associated with malnutrition in early life, which affects the development of beta cells so that they do not produce much insulin.”

In addition to detecting the path to new treatments, understanding these conditions may improve examination tools. Currently, the standard gold methods for diagnosing and evaluating the development of type 2 diabetes are glucose tests in the plasma, which measure blood sugar after fasting, and HBA1C blood test, which detects the chemical compound levels called HBA1C that indicates blood sugar levels over time. But such tests appear ineffective in some population.

last year Major study It highlighted that there are a large number of African people who are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes late than it might be, because they carry deficiency in an enzyme called G6PD. This genetic difference Relatively In parts of sub -Saharan Africa because it gives protection against severe malaria, but also reduces HBA1C levels, which makes it look like a person’s blood sugar levels are healthier than they are already. The study showed that many of these patients end up with preventive complications such as diabetic retinopathy, which can cause blindness.

Meanwhile, researchers such as Julia Guidic, a professor and chief specialist in the Medical Research Council in South Africa, found that the use of glucose in plasma fasting as a way to diagnose type 2 diabetes in African women tends to be ineffective, because it is assumed that the patient holds a large amount of fat in the liver. “The percentage of fasting glucose is often used as a sign of diabetes risk, but this is because liver fat is a large driver for fasting glucose levels,” says Guidic. “In Africans, it is actually a bad sign, because most women who offer diabetes suffer from low liver fat, so you often miss diabetes if you only take the value of fasting glucose.”

Instead of liver fat, Goedecke search He pointed out that many of these cases are driven by a weak ability to remove insulin from the bloodstream, causing people to have abnormally high levels.

Goedecke and others are now conducting a study that includes men and women from the South African town of Soweto, various societies throughout Ghana, and Ghanaian immigrants to Germany and the Netherlands. They will regularly evaluate a set of biological properties over several years. “We hope this data will also give us a better understanding of the mechanisms that the disease involves and the ideas of interventions to try to prevent it,” she says.

While research in diabetes across Africa should have direct effects of patients in the region, Chikowure believes that everyone can benefit from the disease. Understanding the reason that sub -Saharan African women seem to be more flexible in obtaining liver fat, for example, can lead to the development of drugs that can improve metabolism in other ethnic groups. “With diversity, you have the two ends of the spectrum: people exposed to preparation and protected people.” “We have higher opportunities to find these people in Africa more than anywhere.”

An example of what may be possible, Chicoor cite how genetic studies in African groups have led to the development of a new group of drugs that reduce cholesterol, with one company to explore the release of genes to treat patients. “Imagine if we could do the same thing for diabetes,” he says. “A genetically enlightened drug can make people resistant to diabetes. I think this is what the world is looking for.”