New Drug For Diabetics

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27838, 10 December 1955, Page 9

New Drug For Diabetics

(Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, December 9. A reported claim by German doctors to have found an alternative, to the insulin needle for diabetic patients, is discussed in a leading article in this week’s “Brtish Medical Journal” —the organ of the British Medical Association. . , . . , The article said that the doctors haa investigated the action of a sulphonamide derivative in human diabetic patients. In one report, two of the doctors. H. Franke and J. Fuchs, claimed that it lowered the blood sugar and reduced glycosuria in diabetics who were not having insulin treatment, and that it could replace insulin partly or completely in diabetics already receiving insulin. Another report described how a daily dose of the compound was given to 82 diabetic patients. Young diabetics and patients with mild acidosis had not responded, but of 28 older patients, either previously untreated or inadequately treated, 25 had improved under treatment with the sulphonamide derivative, and the blood sugar decreased rapidly. In several of these cases the drug had been discontinued after 10 days and, provided the diet was controlled, no relapses had occurred during the next three months. Twenty-eight of 38 patients previously treated with insulin, had been able to discontinue insulin after treatment with the sulphonamide derivative had been started. No undesirable side-effects were seen.