CAUSE OF DIABETES.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 September 1922, Page 10

CAUSE OF DIABETES.

NEW MICROBE DISCOVERED. HOPE OF FINDING CURE. London, May 26. A new microbe, suggested to be the cause of diabetes, has been discovered. Two Manchester scientists, Dr. Arnold Renshaw and Mr. Thomas Fairbrother, who recently attracted attention by their application of drystuffs to disease, have made the discovery of a new bacillus. It is one of the group of minute plant organisations which lives out of the air. They describe their discovery, which they have christened “Bacillus amyloclasticus intestinalis,” in the British Medical Journal. The action of this spore-bearing microbe is to split up starchy foods into alcohol, organic acids and acetone and sugar. Out of nine diabetes cases examined this microbe was found in seven cases, and the importance of the discovery is that a new channel of investigation is opened for the cure of the disease. It has been found that certain other microbes prevent or delay the production in the system of acetone, and this, combined with a diet so composed as to allow digestion and absorption by the patient of foods which the bacteria cannot assimilate, will prove an important part of the treatment.