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UK Doctors Cure Type 1 Diabetes
ayden writes "The BBC is
reporting that a 61-year-old man has become the first person in the UK to be cured of type 1 diabetes thanks to a groundbreaking cell-transplant technique.
More
info
here."
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I'm off to 7-Eleven for a Pepsi Super Big Gulp!
Trolling is a art,
From someone who has both parents being diabetic, this is great news.
Sweet
Is the anti-rejection drug regime. It can cause problems down the line with side-effects and with the immune system somewhat compromised, a susceptibility to infection.
If stem cell research continues at the rate it does, even this will be solved when cord blood stored at the patients birth is encouraged to differentiate into Eyelet cells, injected back into the patient years later and begin producing insulin. No rejection problems with your own-tissue-derived cells.
Also, this, as far as I am aware, will not help with Insulin-independent diabetic conditions.
USians, consider writing to your senator to protest Bush policies on Stem cell research. I'm not having a pop at him - fair enough if it's a moral issue to some folks. Just register your opinion with them. It can't hurt.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
...I see is the need for three pancreases for the process - it'd take a lot of donations to cure every Type 1 Diabetic out there. Stiil, they interviewed the guy on the radio, and he seems happy that he's got the flexibility, so its still an improvement (drugs compared to needles - tough choice)
This is a cure for type I. Type I is what you get as a kid when your body never makes enough insulin. Type II is what you get when you consume so much sugar your body can't produce enough insulin.
Drink that Super Big Gulp and you will add to your chance of getting type II, which isn't covered by this treatment. (Not to mention all the other unhealthy things about soda in general)
The articles linked only say that this patient received three transplants. Nothing more.
Where is your source for the conclusion that every patient is going to need three transplants?
For all these brief articles tell us, maybe one procedure would be sufficient for a diabetic in better condition; Mr Lane sounded in pretty bad shape (falling into comas on a semi-regular basis) to this here diabetic.
For that matter, where do you get the "1 donated pancreas" == "1 islet cell transplant" equation? That's a mighty big leap to make given these scanty articles.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Unfortunately, it's a poor name. 50% of Type I diagnosises occur in people above the age of 18.
I kid you not.
It works great and it doesn't harm my septic tank!
Leave it for an hour or overnight and flush in the morning.
Now if pop can do that, imagine what it does inside you!
Pepsi works too.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
I doubt this will become the standard of care for type I diabetics.
Why? This treatment is very complicated, costly, invovles suppressing the immune system (which has its own problems), and has had very limited success in the past. Pancreas transplantations are really nothing new (they've been doing them with bilateral kidney tranpslants for years); what's more novel here is that they've transplanted only the islet cells from the pancreas. The thing is, whatever causes type I diabetes in the first place, by killing the islet cells, has killed the transplanted iselt cells in previous attempts.
I'm doubtful but hopeful.
Oh, and for those with Type-II diabetes in the family, this has no relevance to you whatsoever. Sorry; the mechanism of the disease is different, though the results (too much sugar in the blood) is the same. In short, in type-I, the body doesn't produce enough insulin, and in type-II, the body is insulin-resistant (ie, less responsive to insulin).
This is being tried today.
Like insulin when it first appeared, it was cow and sheep insulin. It wasn't until years later that Humulin was developed (synthetic human insulin to you layman).
This is the first step and assuming it works as well as it appears from this write up, then wholesale cloning of the pancreas tissue will follow.
And for those that think this has no bearing on type II diabetis, you are shortshighted, at best, and wrong at worst. ANY time you cure a related desease, some of it becomes a significant gain to all the other related deseases.
I'm happy even if it only cures Type I. Even though I am a type II, my brother is a type I and it wll probably help him. It's too late for my Mom.
Not sure how this has been missed, but unless I'm mistaken, this is *not* the first time we've seen islet cell transplantation to correct Type I diabetes in patients with insulin-dependant diabetes mellitus (IDDM). From http://www.diabetes.org.uk/islets/trans/edmonton.h tm
"The 'Edmonton' protocol is a procedure developed in Canada for transplanting healthy islet cells into people with Type 1 diabetes.
The series of islet transplantations carried out by James Shapiro and his team since March 1999 has enjoyed levels of success that are unprecedented in the field of islet transplantation surgery.
Since the Edmonton transplantation research trial began, 48 patients have undergone 92 islet infusions in Canada. The most recent statistics from Edmonton (January 2003) state that one year after transplantation 84 per cent of patients remain insulin free and that after three years, 89 per cent of patients are still producing insulin. Previous islet cell transplants have only succeeded in around eight per cent of cases.
In addition to the work being carried out in Canada, approximately 200 patients have received islet transplants using the 'Edmonton' protocol or varients of the process in several centres worldwide. There are now almost 75 programmes planned to become activated within the next six to 12 months."
Also, check this link from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research:
http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/publications/newsletter/Sum mer00/sum00/inside/diabetes.feat.htm
Seriously, without antibiotics, has there been ANY medical advance in the past 50+ years?
For all intents and purposes, the answer is no.
Of course, the pedant would argue the semantics of the word "medical", and offer up examples like
But if you define "medical breakthrough" as something along the lines of "a chemical [non-mechanical] agent that cures [not just treats the symptoms of] a disease [as opposed to a mechanical injury, like a broken bone, or a blocked artery]", then the hundreds of billions [trillions?] of dollars spent on "medical research" in the post WWII era by the western world has been, for all intents and purposes, an utter and complete waste of money.And if the "cure" for Type I Diabetes described here is nothing more than a partial pancreatic transplant in combination with an aggressive regimen of anti-rejection drugs, then I wouldn't classify it as a "medical" breakthrough - rather, it's just a new surgical technique.
PS: If you [or a loved one] ever get really, really sick, keep in mind that the only person who stands a chance in hell of doing anything beneficial for you is a surgeon, not a medical doctor.
PPS: Antibiotics, the true "medical" breakthrough of the 20th century, are primarily a tool of the surgeon, not the medical doctor.
Reporting (on Quirks & Quarks sci show)
success rates aproaching 90% from memory,
albeit with some side-effects.
The idea was to transplant islet cells
from a healthy person into the Type 1
sufferer.
People queued for the chance to join the
medical trials around the world.
Then came word that the transplants could
come from pigs, instead of human donors...
So, what's new...?