Diabetes research at Cambridge has received a boost with £140,000 of funding over the next three years from Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). The grant will support a study into hypoglycaemia awareness in people with diabetes.

Type 1 or juvenile diabetes currently affects 350,000 people in the UK and across Europe incidences are increasing by 3-4 per cent every year in people under 15. Children with type 1 diabetes may have to test their blood at least six times every day and are dependent on insulin injections to stay alive. However insulin does not stop the long term effects of diabetes, which include blindness, limb amputations, strokes and heart disease.

The Principal Investigator is Dr Mark Evans, a university lecturer in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge and Consultant in Diabetes at Addenbrookes Hospital. He believes that his study into how the body monitors blood glucose levels will help determine why defensive hormonal responses to (and thus awareness of) hypoglycaemia may become defective in diabetes, leading to strategies for preventing or reversing this defect. The research will support JDRF's ultimate goal, to find a cure for type 1 diabetes.

Dr Evans commented:

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