This is a pretty significant development, and if it does come to fruition will provide great medical relief to so many people, especially in the desi community.
A CURE for insulin-dependent diabetes is in sight following a major medical breakthrough, it has been announced. Scientists in the United States have not only halted the disease in mice mimicking human type 1 diabetes, but reversed it. Plans are now under way to conduct patient trials which could lead to the first ever cure for the disorder. The major development, which coincides with World Diabetes Day today, comes as Health Minister Rosie Winterton announced that pancreas transplants are to treble, transforming the lives of many diabetics. By trebling transplants from 50 to 150 a year, the national need for the operation was expected to be met by 2009, she said.
Type 1 diabetes results in the immune system attacking the pancreatic islet cells which produce insulin, the essential hormone that allows the body to obtain energy from glucose. Sufferers have to give themselves regular insulin injections to balance their blood sugar and ensure what they eat is turned into body fuel. Without insulin jabs, they die. Until now there has been no prospect of a cure for the auto-immune illness that affects 350,000 people in the UK and 194 million around the world. But yesterday researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston claimed to have reversed the disease in mice by injecting them with spleen cells from healthy animals.
The work was a follow-up to research in 2001 in which spleen cells called splenocytes were shown to halt the auto-immune process behind type 1 diabetes. At that time, the scientists were surprised to find that treated animals did not need a subsequent pancreatic transplant. Their bodies appeared to be secreting insulin anyway. The unanswered question was whether remaining islet cells had been rescued in the diabetic mice, or whether new cells were actually being regenerated. The new results, published in the journal Science, confirmed that the pancreas was being reconstructed in the sick mice. Dr David Nathan, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Diabetes Centre, said: “Patients with fully established diabetes possibly could have their diabetes reversed.”
That's fantastic news. Something optimistic for a change. Insha'Allah the patient trials will prove to be successful.
If they do discover the cure eventually, i hope it becomes easily accessible in all countries not just to those who can afford it.
This therapy will only succeed in ppl with type 1 diabetes (= insulin dependent diabetes mellitus). type 1 diabetes is just a very small proportion of the total diabetes present in the population. It's the type 2 which is most common among ppl. i think only less than 5% of all ppl with diabetes will have a benefit form this.
(Among desis it's almost always type 2 diabetes...)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by NeSCio: *
This therapy will only succeed in ppl with type 1 diabetes (= insulin dependent diabetes mellitus). type 1 diabetes is just a very small proportion of the total diabetes present in the population. It's the type 2 which is most common among ppl. i think only less than 5% of all ppl with diabetes will have a benefit form this.
(Among desis it's almost always type 2 diabetes...)
[/QUOTE]
But the type 1 is still very painful, having those insulin shots every day, and that blood monitoring test too... Hopefully, this will be a dream come true for them.
It’s more like 10% of all people with Diabtetes who have type 1, and I have personally seen quite a few Desi’s afflicted with this type. Let’s not downplay what this will mean for those people who have to endure such painful insulin shots every day, and having to so closely watch their blood levels constantly throughout the day.
Inshallah, finding a cure to type 1 diabetes will go along way to finding a cure to the more prevelant type 2.
spcok and mailk73: by no means i intended on downplaying the worth of this discovery/invention for diabetics. I wanted to put this development into a better perspective cuz the article posted didn't mention anything about the relation between the two types of diabetes