Treatment of diabetes: Marie Marthe Chabi offers therapy with light

The L’Oréal Foundation and UNESCO revealed on December 10 the winners of the Young Talents Prize for Women and Science in Africa.

This prize, which is in its 15th edition, rewarded 30 African researchers in the field of science in 2024, including 25 doctoral students and 5 post-doctoral students from 15 African countries.

Among them is Beninese doctoral student Marie Marthe Chabi.

Marie Marthe Chabi stands out for her research in the health sector, targeting an illness that affects more and more Africans: diabetes.

According to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO), 24 million people were affected by diabetes in Africa in 2021, and this figure is expected to increase to 55 million in 2045, an increase of 129%.

This disease, considered a killer in Africa, manifests itself in several forms according to the WHO.

• Type 1 diabetes: It is due, explains the organization, to insufficient production of insulin in the body. An external supply of insulin is then required for the patient’s body. Type 1 diabetes presents with excessive urination (polyuria), thirst (polydipsia), constant hunger, weight loss, vision problems and fatigue.
• Type 2 diabetes: According to the WHO, it is caused by insufficient insulin production or an inability of the body to use insulin effectively. This type of disease, which previously affected adults, “has recently spread to an increasing number of children,” she says. Presenting the same symptoms as type 1, it is favored by being overweight and physical inactivity. This was observed in 95% of people diagnosed with diabetes.
• Gestational diabetes: This hyperglycemia occurs in pregnant women and poses a high risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. “Their children are also at high risk of type 2 diabetes,” says the WHO.

The doctoral student in biological sciences, Marie Marthe Chabi, chose to base her research on type 2 diabetes and this choice is not by chance.

“Personally, I know people who suffer from the disease and it must be recognized that the majority of them have a quality of life that is really reduced by the illnesses that result from type 2 diabetes,” confides Miss Chabi.

If diabetes is defined as a disease characterized by high blood sugar levels, it goes beyond that according to Marie Marthe Chabi.

It expands to the occurrence, for example, of diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, therefore diseases that affect the heart, diseases that affect the nerves, which even affect the eyes, she explains.

The more the factors that need to be monitored to have a slightly more balanced lifestyle are ignored, the more damage the disease does and even causes death.

“That’s why I’m fighting against it,” explains Marie Marthe Chabi.

This therapy consists of applying light to the patient’s body in order to identify, she says, the mechanisms and signaling pathways that stop or reduce the absorption of glucose.

But is it enough to apply any light to the body? What part of the body anyway?

The mechanism is much more complex, she says straight away, specifying that she is interested “with red light, infrared light“.

“Light, in fact, is energy. It’s like the sun which brings us heat when we are cold. This light is made up of small molecules called photons which will serve as sources of energy, for small energy plants found in the body called mitochondria.”

When a person is, for example, exposed to a red or infrared light device, these small energy centers in the body absorb the energy that is light.

This energy will then regulate the pathways that allow glucose absorption which is inhibited in people who suffer from type 2 diabetes, she explains.

“Our challenge here is to actually show that with red light, we can re-establish this pathway in order to improve the absorption of glucose and therefore reduce the inflammation found in the organs. insulin target,” Chabi concludes.

Like any medical solution, the technology proposed by Marthe Chabi is used upon prescription and medical attention. Especially since, she insists, “for the moment, we are still in the testing phase”.

“We still have a lot of experimentation to do. We still have a lot of adjustments to make so that we can just let the patient load.”

Currently, Marie Marthe Chabi continues to refine her research by conducting tests on animal models.

To achieve a quality final product, the researcher must go through three phases which require a significant investment in time, knowledge and above all material and financial.

The first phase, which is the in-vitro phase, is done exclusively in the laboratory. The second phase is that of experimentation on rats, a stage in which it is at the moment we complete this article.

If Marie Marthe Chabi was able to carry out these two phases while counting on the few resources she had, she needs more funding to move on to the last one.

“I’m not going to lie to you, research really requires a lot of funding.”

“For the moment, we are not yet satisfied with the type of financing we have, but we make do with what we have,” she says, specifying that her leitmotif remains the reason why she started in this research: his personal experience mentioned above.

With this award from the L’Oréal-Unesco Foundation, she rejoices, “we hope to have more funding to move on to the clinical trial stage.”

In sub-Saharan Africa, women represent only 31% of researchers and they are paid less and often less highlighted than their male peers, estimates UNESCO.

“The first challenge we face is really that of financing, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, in West Africa, in my country,” insists Dr. Chabi.

“So, I really hope that I can attract the attention of people or institutions that are really interested in this topic, so that they can get their hands dirty and allow me to give the best of me to be able to make this happen. a physical product that is truly effective.”

The second point is self-confidence according to the doctoral student in biological sciences.

“Me, I had to work a lot on myself to really believe in myself and I tell myself that as long as I want something, I give myself the means to achieve it”

This is especially true, she believes, because stereotypes are sometimes an obstacle.

“I haven’t had to deal with a lot of stereotypes, but they are there.”

“I always take to heart a piece of advice from an elder who actually tells me that no matter what happens, no matter how I actually behave, whether I do it well or not I will always be criticized.”

With this philosophy in mind, “I hold on, no matter what stereotypes there are,” she concludes.

With the contribution of Patrick Degbevi