Not good news for diabetic vampires, but for non-porphyric sufferers a potential new drug to treat both diabetes types I and II has been discovered.

Garlic: the saviour for diabetics?

Garlic: the saviour for diabetics?

The new drug, based on allixin, a compound found in garlic, can be administered orally – perhaps as a tablet – and effectively lowers the blood glucose level of type 1 diabetic mice, the study has found.

Type 1 diabetics currently stick to a daily regime of self-injection with insulin, whereas type 2 diabetics are treated with oral drugs, sometimes leading to undesirable side-effects.

This is a great story from the first round of Advance Articles from our new journal, Metallomics, the first issue of which will be published next year.

The article itself, by Hiromu Sakurai and colleagues at the Suzuka University of Medical Science, Japan, is available free here.

Personally I wonder if a garlic-based drug would give you bad breath… any other opinions on this?