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A drug used to kill intestinal parasites may prove a cure for type-2 diabetes, new research from Rutgers University shows.

According to Financial Express, the study was done by Victor Shengkan Jin, an associate professor of pharmacology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. The study involved burning fat inside liver cells through a process called mitochondrial uncoupling. Fat present in liver cells prevents it absorbing glucose in blood. This results in excess glucose accumulation which causes type -2 diabetes and its consequences like blindness.

"The cell is like a car and the mitochondria are the engine. What we're doing inside cells is like putting the car's transmission into neutral by uncoupling it from the transmission. Then you step on the gas so the engine runs full throttle but the car doesn't move. If too much of the fuel in the cell is fat, you keep burning it until the fuel gauge reaches empty. Without the interference of fat, you hope that sugar will then enter the cell normally," Jin said in a press release.

The research was aimed at finding a safe compound that would help deplete fat inside cells. From literature Jin found a drug to kill parasites which could be used in human liver cells.

"The modified form of the medication, although itself is not a drug used in humans, has an excellent safety profile in other mammals - so very likely it would have a good safety profile in humans too," he said. Niclosamide Ethanolamine Salt was the modified medication used by Jin in his study.

"We used mice to perform proof-of-principle experiments in our laboratory. We succeeded in removing fat, and that in turn improved the animals' ability to use insulin correctly and reduce blood sugar."

Type-2 diabetes affects an estimated 28 million in the US with worrisome projections from CDC which portends that 40 percent of Americans living today would develop the condition.