People with diabetes are at a higher risk of fracturing a bone than the general population.
People with diabetes are at a higher risk of fracturing a bone than the general population. And if they do break one it also takes longer than normal to heal.
In the March issue of Biomaterials, Henry Daniell, Shuying (Sheri) Yang, and colleagues at Penn’s School of Dental Medicine share promising findings from an animal model in which a plant-grown protein drug sped healing of a bone fracture. The work, which used the protein insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), showed that an orally delivered, shelf-stable medication grown in lettuce plants could stimulate the growth of bone-building cells and promote bone regeneration.
“It’s amazing how one protein impacted fracture healing,” says Daniell, corresponding author on the paper. “The current drug for diabetic patients with a fracture requires repetitive injections and hospital visits and as a result patient compliance is low. Here we gave an oral drug once a day and saw healing to be greatly accelerated.”
Read more at University Of Pennsylvania
Image: In a mouse model of diabetes, a plant-grown compound helped bone fractures heal faster. CREDIT: University Of Pennsylvania
