Nicosia: In what can be termed as a major breakthrough, a new method to provide medication for adult diabetics (Type II Diabetes) that is not dependent on insulin has been developed by a doctoral student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Unlike other conventional drugs that require active insulin-producing cells in the pancreas and that often fail to overcome a companion problem of insulin resistance, the novel compounds developed by Arie Gruzman and his supervisor, Prof Shlomo Sasson, in collaboration with Prof Yehoshua Katzhendler and Prof Erol Cerasi of the Hebrew University School of Pharmacy and the Faculty of Medicine, are unique in that they can reduce hyperglycaemia (above-normal levels of glucose in the blood) by increasing the rate of glucose disposal in the blood in a non-insulin-dependent manner.

For his work, which he did for his Ph.D. thesis in pharmacology, Arie Gruzman was awarded one of this year's Kaye Innovation Awards at the Hebrew University.

Experts say that the new drugs, when fully developed, may provide a treatment to Diabetic patients who have especially serious problems of insufficient natural insulin production and/or resistance to insulin.

A patent for these new compounds - which, perhaps surprisingly, are based on D-Xylose, a sugar found in fruits -- has been obtained through the Hebrew University's Yissum Research Development Company.

ANI