Introduction

Diabetes is a disease in which the body fails to regulate blood sugar adequately.  Type 1 diabetes is caused by a failure to produce sufficient insulin, the hormone that is primarily responsible for the regulation of blood sugar, and Type 2 diabetes is a failure to respond to insulin.

Approximately 7.8% of the US population has diabetes, while almost twice that number is estimated to suffer from pre-diabetes, a precursor condition to full-blown diabetes. Obesity is a major risk factor for diabetes.

Insulin therapy can help control blood sugar levels, but patients with Type 2 diabetes are often insulin resistant.

Poorly controlled diabetes can lead to a host of complications including hypertension, heart disease and stroke, kidney disease and failure, diabetic neuropathy and retinopathy and diabetic ulcers.
 
Animal Models of Diabetes

There are numerous genetic models of diabetes in both rats and mice, including the Zucker and ZDF rats and ob/ob and db/db mice in which diabetes develops spontaneously. There are also models of diet-induced diabetes, in which the development of diabetes is a secondary consequence of obesity. Diabetes can also be induced by treatment with chemicals, such as streptozotocin, which ablates the insulin producing cells of the pancreas, thereby inducing diabetes. All of these models can be used to evaluate the different aspects of diabetes, whether testing novel therapeutic compounds that help control blood glucose levels in a simple oral glucose tolerance test, or evaluating compounds to treat one of complications of diabetes, such as diabetic ulcer, Biomodels has the experience and expertise to help our clients select and run the appropriate study.