| GEO Health | | Lobsters may hold paralysis cure: study | Updated at: 0956 PST, Wednesday, April 21, 2010
 WASHINGTON: A new treatment based on the shells of sea creatures like lobsters may offer fresh hope to paralyzed and brain-damaged patients.
US researchers have found that a simple sugar found in crustacean shells appears to be able to cure damaged spinal chords.
Professor Richard Borgens, director of the Centre for Paralysis Research in Indiana, which is pioneering the new treatment, said: “This is the most exciting development for spinal cord and brain injury since Second World War.
In the treatment, the sugar, mixed with sterile water, is injected into the bloodstream and then migrates to the spinal cord injury where it plugs holes in the coating of the nerve cells.
The treatment, successfully used in guinea pigs, will also work in human trials, says the expert.
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