Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) can cause devastating damage to the body, yet even with medication and lifestyle changes over half of patients still have dangerously high blood sugar. Duodenal mucosal resurfacing (DMR) is a quick and effective innovation from UCLH investigators which re-sets the body’s glucose-controlling signals, bringing blood sugar levels under control.
Worldwide approximately 425,000,000 people suffer from Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), a progressive disease that can lead to blindness, kidney damage, heart disease, strokes, limb amputations and premature death. UCLH/UCL gastroenterologist Dr Rehan Haidry has been pivotal in developing urgently-needed treatments for high blood sugar.
Unlike current T2D treatments that focus on controlling blood sugar (e.g. injecting insulin), DMR corrects the disease’s underlying causes. The treatment builds on findings from BRC-funded UCL researchers including Professor Rachel Batterham, who have shown that blood sugar levels are controlled by signals from the upper intestine (duodenum) and that T2D is often put into remission by gastric bypass surgery, which prevents food from entering the duodenum.
DMR involves passing a flexible camera and a thin tube with a small balloon through the mouth and stomach into the duodenum. The balloon is heated and burns the duodenum lining, forcing it to regenerate and ‘re-setting’ the metabolic processes that drive T2D. The procedure takes less than an hour and does not require an overnight stay in hospital.
Dr Haidry undertook the first-in-human study using DMR1 and was the UK lead investigator, supported by Obesity Theme BRCfunded staff, on the first two international multi-centre trials. Data from over 20 centres and approximately 300 patients have since proven that DMR is feasible and safe, and in one patient blood sugar control was sustained for a whole year 2,3.
DMR is now available privately in the UK as Revita (DMR)TM for treating T2D, and in 2020, the US FDA granted Investigational Device Exemption to discover if DMR can improve T2D enough to allow them to stop their insulin treatment. Dr Haidry will lead this pivotal research study at UCLH in people with T2D. The treatment was granted FDA breakthrough device designation in 2021 and shows great promise to change the way T2D progresses, potentially changing the futures of millions of sufferers.
1. Haidry R et al., Gastrointes Endosc 2019; 2. van Baar ACG et al., Gut 2020; 3. Mingrone G et al., Gut 2020
