Type 1 diabetes currently has no cure, but it surely seems scientists are a step closer to stopping the condition. A latest study shows using antiviral drugs on children newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes might be a big breakthrough.

Administering antiviral drugs could slow disease progression, preserve insulin production and should potentially prevent type 1 diabetes, says researchers from the University of Oslo (UiO). The study’s findings were published within the journal Nature Medicine.

Type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition during which the body doesn’t make adequate insulin. Although the precise cause just isn’t known, an autoimmune response when body cells mistakenly attack insulin-producing pancreatic cells might be an element. In some cases, the condition is hereditary, and certain environmental aspects comparable to viruses could also trigger it.

Around 1.45 million people have type 1 diabetes within the U.S. and the condition is growing at a rate of two.9% per yr.

The team earlier observed an association between diabetes and viral infection. In the newest study, they tried to handle it using a mix therapy of antiviral drugs pleconaril and ribavirin.

“We all know through our previous research that a chronic enterovirus infection is present within the pancreas of those newly diagnosed patients we have studied,” said study co-author Dr. Knut Dahl-Jørgensen, a senior professor at UiO. “We desired to see if the virus was a trigger for developing type 1 diabetes and if we could slow the progression of the disease by addressing the virus. We have shown that antiviral medication will be effective for preserving insulin production, meaning it could be possible to treat and decelerate type 1 diabetes with medication and possibly eventually prevent the disease.”

Researchers conducted two clinical trials with a complete of 96 participants at Oslo University Hospital, Norway, and Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen/Herlev University Hospital, Copenhagen. All of the participants were aged between six and 15 and were newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. They were then randomly assigned to receive either a mix of pleconaril and ribavirin or a placebo. At the top of the trial, endogenous insulin production (the insulin produced by the pancreas) was measured.

“In conclusion, this study shows that amongst children and adolescents with newly diagnosed T1D, the mixture therapy of two antiviral drugs, pleconaril and ribavirin, resulted in higher residual endogenous insulin production than placebo. These results provide a rationale for future studies to judge the efficacy of antiviral drugs within the prevention and treatment of T1D,” the researchers wrote.

Nonetheless, the study has certain limitations, because the trials were conducted with a small variety of participants. The researchers also said that information regarding continuous glucose monitoring was not available for all participants.

“Further studies ought to be done at an earlier stage within the disease process to judge whether antiviral treatment could delay the progression of beta-cell damage resulting in clinical type 1 diabetes. This study supports that low-grade persistent virus infection is an underlying disease mechanism, and that type 1 diabetes could also be prevented by the event of recent vaccines,” Dahl-Jørgensen said.