NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — Treatment with a drug called anakinra improves blood glucose levels and the secretion of insulin by the beta-cells of the pancreas in patients with type 2 diabetes, new research shows.Anakinra, also known by the brand name Kineret, blocks an inflammatory compound in the body called interleukin 1 and is usually used to treat arthritis. Lab findings, however, indicate that it might be helpful in people with type 2 diabetes by protecting beta-cells from glucose-induced impairment.

Dr. Marc Y. Donath, from the University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, and colleagues assessed the outcomes of 70 patients with type 2 diabetes who were given anakinra or an inactive placebo daily for 13 weeks. The results appear in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine.

The average level of A1C — an indicator of long-term glucose control — dropped from 8.69 to 8.37 percent among the patients in the anakinra group while it increased from 8.23 to 8.37 percent in the patients given placebo, “yielding a between-group difference of 0.46 percentage point.”