Chewable drug candidate BTI320 can potentially prevent added sugar intake

Feb 21 2014

It's official: sugar is not so sweet—for our health, that is. The new study "Added Sugar Intake and Cardiovascular Diseases Mortality Among US Adults," published in JAMA Internal Medicine, examines the intake of "added sugars," and the results suggest that sugar is now an independent risk factor for heart disease and other chronic diseases. This study's findings are yet another reason to cut back on our added sugar intake.

But what does cutting back on sugar really mean, and how can we do it? Avoiding sugary drinks, candy and cookies is obvious, but what about the less obvious ways sugar enters the body? How can sugar be identified when it is incognito?

Dr. David Platt, CEO of Boston Therapeutics, is a scientific pioneer, author and expert on complex carbohydrate chemistry who has devoted his life's work to studying this topic and how carbohydrates allow sugar to enter the body. Carbohydrates have been shown to play a fundamental role in normal cell function, as well as in major disease pathologies including cancer, cardiovascular disease and inflammatory diseases.

Dr. Platt's unprecedented work in complex carbohydrate chemistry has contributed to the development of multiple therapeutics for chronic diseases, including diabetes.
Currently, Dr. Platt is developing BTI320 (formerly PAZ320), a non-systemic, non-toxic, chewable drug candidate being studied in people with Type 2 diabetes. BTI320 might have a unique mechanism of action because it aims to block carbohydrates from turning into glucose, in contrast to currently available diabetes treatments that work to force blood sugar down only after it has entered the digestive system and organs like the pancreas.

Because of the role carbohydrates play in glucose intake, eliminating "sugary" food and drinks is not enough. We must consider that carbohydrates may be masking sugar's true identity. With products such as BTI320 currently in development, it becomes a possibility to address this challenge in a new and technologically compelling way.