Hopes grow for shrinking frog cure

Richard Collins on an amphibian that may provide the solution to diabetes.

ACCORDING to the Irish Medical Times, an exotic amphibian may be able to help diabetes sufferers. The ‘enigmatic’ or ‘shrinking’ frog, found in lakes and ponds of the Amazon basin and in Trinidad, is a very unusual creature.

Normally, baby animals are much smaller than their parents but, with the shrinking frog, the reverse is the case. The eggs, like those of all frogs, are laid in water and develop into tadpoles. Then something quite extraordinary happens: the tadpoles grow and grow. Some reach a length of 26cm (10 inches) but the adult frogs into which they change are only 4cm long. The shrinking frog is unusual in another respect; teams at the University of Ulster and the Emirates, have been studying a substance found in its skin. Dr Yasser Abdel-Wahab presented some of their findings at the UK diabetes conference in Glasgow this month.