Researcher Credits Nobel Prize Winner Ferid Murad '58 for Diabetes Breakthrough

September 18, 2008

September 18, 2008, Greencastle, Ind. - "For those afflicted with Type 2 diabetes, a Largo doctor says he has a solution to the disease that resets the pancreas and permanently returns patients to normal," and John Young gives part of the credit to Ferid Murad, a 1958 graduate of DePauw University, reports Florida's Largo Leader. Dr. Young "has been experimenting with a new process for reversing the disease over the past seven years and claims to have a success rate of 80 percent with over 100 diabetes patients," notes the newspaper.

"Young, who studied past diabetes research and more recent breakthroughs by Nobel Prize winners, uses a combination of alkaline protein and minerals with a form of iodine that he says reverses the process in diabetes patients in eight to 12 weeks," writes Bob McClure. "The key is to stay on a low-carbohydrate diet and blood sugar levels will remain normal. He said his success has been with pre-diabetes patients, who have blood sugar levels from 100 to 125, and Type 2 patients, who have blood sugar levels much higher."

The story points out, "Young studied the work of John Myer at Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Frederick Klenner, a former assistant professor of medicine at Duke University; Dr. Robert Cathcart of Los Altos, Calif.; and Wilhelm Kauffman, a former researcher at Yale University. He took their research and combined it with the cell membrane research of 1931 Nobel Prize winner Otto Warburg; along with the work of 1998 Nobel Prize winners Robert Furchgott, Louis Ignarro and Ferid Murad on nitric oxide in relation to basic medical proteins; and the work of 1999 Nobel Prize winner Gunter Blobel who conducted research on cell receptors in relation to proteins within membranes."

Young tells the newspaper, "This is nothing new. I just went back to what the old boys were doing at the big institutions and I looked at the Nobel Prizes."

Access the complete article at the Leader's Web site.

Dr. Murad shared a Nobel Prize in 1998 for his research on nitric oxide, including identifying its role in nitroglycerin. He delivered the golden anniversary address to his Class of 1958 at DePauw's Alumni Celebration on June 14, in which he expressed his concern that the United States "may be starting to lose the race" in science and technology. A brief summary of his remarks and a link to an MP3 file of the complete speech can be found in this story.

This summer, Ferid Murad and his team of researchers announced a breakthrough that may lead to a "magic bullet" treatment for diarrhea, which kills approximately 2 million children in developing countries each year. Details can be found by clicking here.

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