WASHINGTON, June 11 (Xinhua) -- American researchers have developed an oral agent in a pill that temporarily coats the intestine and reduces post-meal blood sugar spikes, making it a potential treatment for diabetes.

A study published on Monday in the journal Nature Materials showed that a substance known as sucralfate, which was previosuly used in the treatment of gastrointestinal ulcers, could adhere to the small intestine in rats and then dissolve within a matter of hours.

The research team at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) further engineered the substance into a novel material that can coat the lining of the intestine without requiring activation by gastric acid.

The engineered compound, referred to as LuCI (Luminal Coating of the Intestine), can be made into a dry powdered form that can be encapsulated as a pill, according to Ali Tavakkoli, co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Metabolic Surgery at BWH and co-senior author of the study.

"We've used a bioengineering approach to formulate a pill that has good adhesion properties and can attach nicely to the gut in a preclinical model. And after a couple of hours, its effects dissipate," said the paper's co-lead author Lee Yuhan, a materials scientist in the BWH Division of Engineering in Medicine.

The team found that once in the intestine of rats, LuCI can coat the gut, forming a thin barrier that alters nutrient contact and lowers blood glucose response after a meal.

After a meal, blood sugar levels rise and can stay elevated over time. However, one hour after LuCI was administered to the rats, the response to glucose was lowered by 47 percent.

The team found that this response was temporary, and after three hours, the effect essentially disappeared.

The team is now testing the effect of short- and long-term use of LuCI in diabetic and obese rodent models.