Diabetes is a condition in which the amount of glucose (sugar) in the blood is too high because the body cannot use it properly. Normally insulin is produced by cells in the pancreas in the right amounts needed to regulate blood sugar levels.

In Type 2 diabetes, the beta cells that produce insulin may fail to respond adequately to changes in blood glucose concentrations after a meal. Type 1, also known as insulin-dependent diabetes, is a less common disease that results in the complete destruction of insulin-producing cells.

South American frogs could provide a new treatment for type 2 diabetes; say a joint team of scientists from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates. They discovered that a substance on the skin of the South American ‘paradoxical frogs' boosts the production of insulin by 50 % in human. A synthetic version of the compound - pseudin-2 - could be used to produce new drugs.

Researcher Dr Yasser Abdel-Wahab, who presented his findings at a diabetes conference in Glasgow said: "Now we need to put our work into practice to try to help people with type 2 diabetes.” More research is needed but there is a growing body of work around natural anti-diabetic drug discovery that is already yielding fascinating results."

Researcher Dr Yasser Abdel-Wahab, (senior lecturer in biomedical sciences at the University of Ulster) had been a lot of research into bioactive molecules from amphibian skin secretions. One recently developed diabetes drug - exenatide - was developed from a hormone in the saliva of the Gila monster - a lizard found in south-western United States and Northern Mexico.

Researcher Dr Yasser Abdel-Wahab Says "More research is needed, but there is a growing body of work around natural anti-diabetic drug discovery that, as you can see, is already yielding fascinating results."