Relief for diabetics in the form of frog

London, Mar 3 (UNI) For all diabetics who take insulin injections day in and day out, scientists have found that a compound found on the skin of a South American frog boosts the production of the hormone.

They have made a synthetic version of the compound, hoping to turn it into a pill to treat sufferers of type 2 diabetes.

The paradoxical frog, so called because the tadpole is much larger than the adult, is found in ponds, lakes and lagoons in the Amazon and Trinidad.

It could provide an alternative to diet control, exercise, tablets and insulin injections in the treatment of diabetes.

Study of the frog at Ulster University revealed that a synthetic version of the compound, known as pseudin-2, in the skin on its back can greatly increase the amount of insulin made.

Researcher Dr Yasser Abdel-Wahab said, ''Now we need to put our work into practice to try to help people with type 2 diabetes.

''More research is needed but there is a growing body of work around natural anti-diabetic drug discovery that is already yielding fascinating results,'' he added.

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