This is the first in what I hope will be a series of updates on potential T1 cures and other research of note. Just remember - mice aren’t people, and most drugs fail to get out of testing.
With that out of the way:
Israeli researchers have discovered a way to get mouse immune systems to tolerate islet cell transplants without a lifetime of antirejection drugs. They use an anti-inflammatory drug called alpha-1-antitrypsin, or AAT. Even after drug administration stopped, the transplanted islets kept working and the immune system would still reject other tissue grafts. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/11/MNP614G1OH.DTL
And, of course, there was the $40 million dollar donation to the University of Minnesota.
Novocell, a San Diego-based stem cell engineering company, will collaborate with Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University on stem-cell based treatments for T1 diabetes, using Yamanaka’s method of causing adult cells to return to pluripotent form. (Pluripotent cells are capable of becoming any type of cell.) http://www.sdbj.com/article.asp?aID=0674958.2673435.1718600.38076502.3910533.846&aID2=132191.
That’s all for now. Have a great night, and enjoy your weekends!
Thank you Dov,have a great weekend.
For me the most interesting of the above is this:
Novocell to Collaborate on Diabetes Treatment
San Diego-based stem cell engineering company Novocell said Dec. 9 it will collaborate with renowned Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University to push forward stem cell treatments for type 1 diabetes.
As a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, Yamanaka and his colleagues discovered in 2006 they could reprogram skin cells from a mouse into pluripotent stem cells, capable of transforming into any number of cells in the body, such as muscle or heart.
Yamanaka’s team discovered last year how to send human adult cells back to an embryonic state, laying the foundation for future research. The new cells, known as induced pluripotent stem cells, are believed to have the same properties as human embryonic stem cells.
Novocell said it would work with Yamanaka to create human islet cells, or insulin-producing cells found in the pancreas, from induced pluripotent stem cells.
A potential therapy could benefit people with type 1 diabetes, whose islet cells have been destroyed.
Until now, Novocell has focused its research on human embryonic stem cells, a controversial method because it requires the destruction of human embryos.
I would have been better off walking from 51st/3rd to Fairway. I probably would have been just as wet, but would have saved 20 minutes AND the cost of the cab. I love this city and all, but sometimes . . . .
Dear Dov. Yes this is a great idea. I am not sure that type 1 and type 2 are so different once you are on insulin. It is probably just the degree to which the pancreas is destroyed. Reading this is like believing in the Messiah a good moral support in hard times. And with diabetes times are hard for most of us a lot of the time.
I suppose I can still hold out hope - after all, Jews have been waiting for the messiah for over two thousand years - and unlike Christians, ours hasn’t even paid us a visit
I also agree that whether your technical diagnosis is T1 or T2, once you’re on insulin, phenotype, and not genotype, control, unless you’re on insulin because of massive resistance and not because your beta cells are toast.
Now that the wedding is over, I can try to do more updates like this.
My Endo diagnosed my type based on looking at my enormous amount of tummy grease, the 65 lb are basically all there. So he said you must be insulin resistant type 2. No objective tests were ever done. However if this was true, how come when I was on Avandia for 1 1/2 years without any tangible benefit. (the cost was ferocious not only health wise but money wise too. Without or without Avandia the average for my blood sugars was exactly the same withing the precision of the BG meter. Moreover the standard deviation of a long series of measurements was exactly the same with and without. Showing that avandia did not even smooth out the peaks. So much for the theory of insulin resistance being the problem because if so then the Avandia would have helped. Even when loosing 85 lb and going down to below my high school weight I never had a BG reading below 125. Now with insulin it is hard but I can go down to 50 (not necessarily good). How does one measure our insulin resistance? Is it not much longer than 2000 years?
Ever notice how some docs just flat out refuse to look at the evidence?
All I meant was that if you have massive IR, then you’re likely taking significantly larger doses of insulin, and you probably still have some of the counter-regulatory function that may be lacking in T1s - also, a cure that would fix/replace islets of Langerhaans in T1s would in theory work for those T2s with crisped pancreae (sp?). (I refer specifically to the possibility of regenerating cells, and not to overcoming autoimmune issues, which is specific to most T1s/LADA.)
I have found that most clical trials for type 1 require that you are under the age of 45 or have been only diagnosed with type 1 in the last six months. I am forever lookig.
I think resistance is measured by how much insulin you use. Remember people who do not have diabetes their body produces 20 to 50 units per day pending what they eat. So some say that usig more then 50 units a day your headed for resistant diabets. It is so difficult I know my average insulin useage is any where from 50 to 79 units per day. My endo want me to limit carbs to no more then 90 per day!
I ever knew I could eat so little! But I can not maintain that number every day!
I am using about 70 to 75 units per day but weight 250 lb so is it insulin resistance or is it just the insulin getting lost in the tummy grease? One phenomena I noticed in the past if you cut 10% of your calories per day it cuts your insulin consumption by more than 20% so one wonders if hypocaloric diet even more effective than low carbs. This is not sustainable I found since I have been on insulin. Strange that Endo has caught on to low carb diet. Politically correct requires here in Canada to preach the CDA food pyramid same as ADA food pyramid. Very high on Carbs. Although went I asked my Endo if his diabetics on a low carb diet lost weight yes said yes most of them do.
Yes I guess that if you could regenerate your own pancreas cells and did not have any autoimmune issues you would be home free minus a few thousand dollars. Whereas with autoimmune problems the need for some sort of a counter to this would still be necessary.
