Amid a Diabetes Epidemic, A New Focus on Drugs to Reduce Blood Sugar

Online, February 14, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Nearly 26 million Americans have diabetes. Another seven million Americans are diabetic but have not been diagnosed, while fully 79 million have a condition known as prediabetes. Even as high carbohydrate intake can lead to a rise in blood sugar and increase one's risk of diabetes, cutting-edge research suggests that complex carbohydrate chemistry is one key to reducing the uptake of sugar into the bloodstream.

A Manchester, NH-based company named Boston Therapeutics is developing several products for the benefit of those with diabetes. For example, the company is developing PAZ320, a chewable complex carbohydrate-based drug designed to reduce post-meal elevation of blood sugar. PAZ320 is designed to be taken before meals and works in the gastrointestinal tract to block the action of enzymes that break down carbs in foods during digestion, reducing the amount of sugar absorbed into the bloodstream by more than 40%. The compound was studied in a clinical trial at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

Boston Therapeutics is also working on BTI-7, a new, chewable-dose form of metformin-the most widely prescribed anti-diabetes drug in the world-to help to control and manage blood glucose level. BTI-7 is expected to provide an alternative for diabetics who cannot or prefer not to swallow metformin pills. BTI-7 is taken before or with meals; it initiates a range of processes that more easily remove glucose from the blood. In 2010, more than 48 million prescriptions were written for metformin in the U.S.

The innovative chemistry being incorporated by Boston Therapeutics into PAZ320 and BTI-7 might help the millions whose health is being compromised by diabetes.

For more information about Boston Therapeutics, please visit www.bostonti.com.