A cure in sight

My 17 year old son has type 1 diabetes and was diagnosed at 8. He is involved in this case study to pursue the reversal of T1 diabetes out of mass general hospital. The progress is amazing. Here is a link to the newsletter from the study. The more publicity for this research the better off the study will go.
http://www.faustmanlab.org/News/FaustmannSpring2008Newsltr.pdf

there’s a limit to what can be “reversed”. A better way to spend time and money would be on prevention.

Kathy –

Has your son been having positive results from the study? (e.g. better glycemic control, insulin need reduction, etc.)?

– Dov

i can 't bring myself to say that I wish I could be cured, because I know it isn’t going to happen in my lifetime.
I wish money grew on trees too.

Medicine has progessed to the point where specific antibodies can be identified in young children of type 1 diabetics, and when these antibodies are present this indicates destruction of beta cells has begun. There is still a great deal to be researched.

Well, if you can reverse it, you could probably use the same mechanism to prevent it, methinks . . . .

He is not in the clinical trial group receiving the medication BCG. He is giving blood to help with the study and will enter the trials in Phase II. I will better answer this when he is receiving the medication.

The Dr in charge of the study explained that when she began her work on mice she was looking for a longer dose insulin. She found after giving the BCG to mice that it killed the non insulin producing cells and the insulin producing cells began to regenerate and the eventual affect was diabetes was eliminated. The research now is defining what dose will work for most patients, how frequently will it need to be taken and for how long before they see the end result. I may be optimistic but this is the closest thing to a cure.

The Dr in charge of the study explained that when she began her work on mice she was looking for a longer dose insulin. She found after giving the BCG to mice that it killed the non insulin producing cells and the insulin producing cells began to regenerate and the eventual affect was diabetes was eliminated. The research now is defining what dose will work for most patients, how frequently will it need to be taken and for how long before they see the end result. I may be optimistic but this is the closest thing to a cure.

Read through the newsletter and although the headlines indicate changes in therapies, the text indicates the goal is to cure diabetes. Our goal is to reverse established type 1 diabetes, not simply temporarily halt it or treat its symptoms.

If BCG works, what does the future look like for type I diabetics? How soon will that future be realized? In the short term, if we see in the Phase I trial that BCG is successful and is having the effect that we expect – which is to stimulate the immune system to eliminate one population of defective cells in type 1 diabetes – then we will move into Phase II and Phase III trials to test the efficacy in larger groups of patients. In the long term, if this approach can be proven in clinical trials, we think it would mean being able to bring new, inexpensive treatments, or even a cure, to diabetics…