It seems difficult (almost impossible) to believe, but the world's not seen a major evolution in the way we treat diabetes since the discovery and subsequent use of insulin nearly 100 years ago. Oh, we've seen delivery methods improve -- like inhalable insulin -- and glucose monitoring technology is practically automated anyhow. When you get right down to brass tacks though, where we are now is where we were when Frederick Banting injected a diabetic with insulin at the University of Toronto.... way back on January 11th of 1922. An up-and-coming biotech company called Cell MedX Corp. (CMXC) could be about to break the world out of that R&D rut, however. The science is called electromedicine, and it's exactly what it sounds like. That is, the application of mild electrical currents to different parts of the body to induce better cellular health, including better glucose processing. As much as biologists and the healthcare industry know about the human body, new discoveries are being made all the time regarding our makeup. One of the more recent medical revelations was figuring out animals are not just a collection of chemicals and organic matter, but also electrical impulses. Yes, the human body creates electricity, but more than that, a body can benefit from mild electrical currents, as an electrical charge can put a damaged cell back into its natural, healthy state. It may seem like a crazy idea at first, but know the FDA has already given the science of electromedicine the nod of approval as a treatment for chronic pain (called the Cefaly, if you're curious), and some major companies are wading deeper into electromedicine waters. Case in point: GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Alphabet (GOOGL), parent of Google, have teamed up to create a bioelectronics-medicine outfit called Galvani Bioelectronics. The two unlike giants are committing $715 million to create miniaturized, implantable devices to modify nerve signals that go awry with several different illnesses. The duo believes such technologies could first address asthma, arthritis, and.... oh yeah, diabetes. In other words, Cell MedX is onto something. The technology the company is developing is called the e-Balance. It's a tablet-sized device with a wand or applicator that delivers a slight electrical current to a particular part of the body. The e-Balance technology is expected to become a full-blown product allowing for the management of diabetes and its related complications... including pain. A professional, clinic-based tool is the one being tested right now, though a consumer/at-home version is on the drawing board. At stake is a piece of the diabetes prevention market that was worth $376 billion in 2010, and is projected to be worth more than $490 billion by 2030. And the biotechnology is showing efficacy in its initial testing, with some big names doing a lot of the research. Cell MedX has engaged Nutrasource Diagnostics Inc. to conduct its observational clinical trial, which is expected to commence in early March. The Metabolomics Innovation Centre at the University of Alberta has been involved in the company’s pilot trial of the e-Balance device. The observations carried out by Cell MedX have shown encouraging results on several fronts. Most diabetics who used the device found lower blood sugar levels after a treatment was administered, and for those trial participants that may not have been diabetics but still suffered chronic pain from conditions like arthritis or muscle injuries, many of them found relief as well. The company seems to have suspected this would be the case, even though its initial R&D was focused on diabetes and the ancillary conditions it often causes. In December of last year, however, Cell MedX plainly said it: "Further investigations led the company to broaden its focus to include conditions like Parkinson's disease and high blood pressure, where the company believes micro-current technology could prove efficacious." That adds a Parkinson's disease market expected to be worth $3.2 billion by 2021 and a hypertension drug market projected to be worth $32 billion by 2020 to the mix. It's in this light one has to start thinking it's all too good to be true; electrical currents surely can't cure all woes. Actually, that's true - they can't solve all bodily problems. Electrical currents can do a heck of a lot, though, for a wide variety of the kinds of cells found in the human body. See, when it's all said and done, each cell in a body is more alike than different. Think back to eighth-grade biology. Each cell contains a nucleus, which is surrounded by cytoplasm, and contained within a membrane. They each perform a different function, creating a different product, and requiring different levels of energy to operate. They all start out with the same DNA though, and they all eat sugar and breathe oxygen. That's why so many of them can respond so well to the same external stimuli. But electricity? Yeah, and it's quickly becoming a focus of research within the healthcare industry. Giving credit where it's due, Scientific American's Daisy Yuhas noted back in 2013: "All cells have an electric potential that comes from the difference between charged atoms and molecules, or ions, on either side of the cell's membrane. Highly malleable cells, such as stem cells, which have the ability to grow into other cell types as well as tumor cells (which are characterized by abnormal and uncontrolled growth) have low electric potentials whereas mature and stable cells have high potentials. [Michael] Levin reasoned that if you could alter a cell's potential you can change how it would grow. And by changing the electric potential of many cells, he hypothesized that he could trigger the growth of a specific structure. Levin sees these patterns of electrical activity as a form of cellular communication, signaling when and how to grow." It was Jacqueline Mitchell of Tufts Now who explained something a little over a year ago that could have you doing a double-take: "The [Dany] Adams and Levin [yes, the same Michael Levin] labs are two of just a handful in the world studying bioelectricity in cells outside the nervous system. In earlier research, the two teams demonstrated that bioelectric signaling is involved in regulating gene expression and anatomical structure in a range of organs by dictating the fate of cells and tissues during development, regeneration and cancer suppression." You read that right - cancer suppression. Cell MedX isn't taking aim at that market just yet, but in that there are so few players working on practical solutions using this young science, the company is well positioned to take the e-Balance idea in a lot of different directions once it gets the device on the market... ....and that may happen sooner than most expect. You may not have seen it, but yesterday Cell MedX announced it had been given the go-ahead by the Ethics Review Board to commence its observational clinical trial in Canada. The focal point of the testing will be the measurement of HbA1c values (an indicator of glucose levels) for diabetics after three months of e-Balance therapy. The organization has already done some testing on its own, but this is the one that should be used as the official report card. The trial is expected be underway by the end of the month, though it may have begun already. And, that's why we wanted to get this newsletter in your hands as soon as possible - the professional version of the device is literally on the verge of beginning its official trials; participants are already lining up. In the meantime, the company continues to work on a consumer version of the device which its website says should be available sometime in early 2017. Well, it is early 2017, and if you look closely at all the press releases Cell MedX has posted for the past couple of years you see a progressive story that looks and feels like things are about to get real interesting, real soon. Wednesday's news that the trial had been given the green light confirms this idea. Bottom line? CMXC is a name to put on your radar soon... as in today. You know the usual 'be smart' speech by now. That is, never allocate more to one trade than you can afford to lose, use an entry limit, and then use a stop to protect yourself once you're in a trade. The flipside is, it's difficult to participate in a medical breakthrough from the sidelines, and Cell MedX may well be sitting on a huge breakthrough. The best part is, there are so few players even thinking about getting into the electromedicine arena right now. The successful development and commercialization of the e-Balance device could allow Cell MedX to claim a huge piece of the budding market all for itself.