By Nikita Rodrigues

Vanderbilt University Medical Center's diabetes researchers have recently embarked on a study to examine how Ramipril, a commonly prescribed ACE inhibitor used to treat high blood pressure, could be used to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.
The research on diabetes treatment has increased drastically in the last couple of years due to the increasing number of people diagnosed with the health problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of people with diabetes in the United States soared from 5.6 million in 1980 to more than 21 million in 2006, an increase of nearly 400 percent. Of these 21 million, 90 to 95 percent of these people have type 2 diabetes, which is apparent through their bodies' resistance of insulin. One of the main reasons attributed to the increase in diabetes is the alarming rate at which obesity is growing in the United States.
The lead investigator of this study, Stephen Davis, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism at VUMC, said the idea to use ACE inhibitors such as Ramipril to treat diabetes came from previous studies where the goal was aggressive management of high blood pressure in people with diabetes and pre-diabetes. While they have determined Ramipril can be used to return someone with pre-diabetes back to a normal blood glucose level, they are unsure of why this phenomenon occurs. Previous studies have shown that Ramipril and other ACE inhibitors can lower the progression of diabetes but have not explored why.
"They found that by taking Ramipril, the progression from pre-diabetes to diabetes was reduced." He also claimed the study was double-edged, seeing as it was also looking at whether the treatment can be used in the reverse for people already diagnosed with diabetes.
The study is being done at Vanderbilt's Medical Center and is open to people between the ages of 20 to 65 who are at risk for diabetes.