The pumpkin could end the need for diabetics to have daily insulin injections.

Compounds in the flesh could drastically cut or even replace the need for diabetics to have insulin injections, a study suggests.

Researchers found that pumpkin extract promotes regeneration of damaged pancreatic cells in diabetic rats, boosting levels of insulin producing beta cells and insulin in the blood.

Diabetic rats fed the extract had only 5 per cent less plasma insulin and 8 per cent fewer insulin-positive (beta) cells than healthy rats.

The protective effect of pumpkin is thought to be due to both antioxidants and D-chiroinositol, a molecule that regulates insulin activity.

The research, carried out at East China Normal University in Shanghai, was reported in the journal Chemistry and Industry.

The rats used all had type 1 diabetes, but researchers believe pumpkin may also play a role in the more common type 2 form.

Now the question arises, with a privately controlled health system, how is BIG pharmaceutical going to profit from something anyone can make? How to you put that into a pill or injection and make billions?

Keep your ears glued to the new diabetes research, how it develops for human application and hope some startup company takes the ball and runs with it to take out the insulin industry and needle makers.