Slashdot Mirror
New MRI Technique Can Detect Diabetes
MonkeyBoy writes "Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center and Massachusetts General Hospital have unveiled a new magnetic nanoparticle based magnetic resonance imaging technique that can detect diabetes even before clinical symptoms. In mice they were able to take non-invasive images of pancreatic inflammation and its reversal for type 1 diabetes. Full article is available as a PDF from Pubmedcentral. Will we see rapid translation of these pre-clinical observations to prediction and/or stratification of type 1 diabetes and treatment of individuals with the disease? This would provide a crucially needed early predictor of response to therapy. As an added bonus it looks like the analysis was done on a Linux box too."
Sweet!
Sure.. MRI should be able to scare away diabetes with the ridiculous sounds it makes..Gosh why did no one think of this before?
Explore your creative side
Yay! Now they can detect my Mountain Dew drinking habits and force me to go cold turkey even when I'm still in denial!
This once again proves that the OS is unimportant, and only the application matters. Who cares what OS was used to run the program that allowed this development? Certainly not the patients that benefit from it.
http://www.residentcynic.net/
That's fantastic, but it's going to take a lot of persuasion to get me to go near an MRI willingly after seeing its effect on nearby hospital equipment. You're only as safe as the stupidest person in the room.
Just reading the summary, it says the box might run on Linux?
This is a good thing, now if only the pharmaceutical companies would make alot of their stuff open to the public, maybe we'd all not suffer nearly as badly due to our wallets not being fat enough.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
This doesn't belong on Slashdot.
Of course it does. Given the sedentary lifestyle of many Slashdotters, it concerns them most directly.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I was just at a meeting at a meeting at a major healthcare company, and number two on the list of priorities for the next 3 years was diabetes detection/prevention. The budget was in the billions.
These guys will be making a LOT of money.
This is an interesting application of magneto-immunoassay - using the change in magnetic properties to determine if there has been a reaction.
I am posting instead of replying b/c there are already several separate posts that have it wrong. Gasp and shock, I know.
Type I diabetes is NOT associated with diet.
This article refers to an autoimmune disease, not a lifestyle induced one.
Ignorance is not a crime; neither should it be a way of life
Congress control $ = inmates run the asylum
Type II isn't caused by a sedintary lifestyle either. I was living an active life, getting lots of exercise when I developed it. I would regularly go out to a mall to walk, not caring that I didn't buy anything, just for the exercise, and I kept that up for the first several years after I was diagnosed. I'm not as active now, but that's because my health isn't good enough right now, and I miss the exercise.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
J Clin Invest. 2005 Aug 18; [Epub ahead of print] Related Articles, Links
Noninvasive imaging of pancreatic inflammation and its reversal in type 1 diabetes.
Turvey SE, Swart E, Denis MC, Mahmood U, Benoist C, Weissleder R, Mathis D.
Section on Immunology and Immunogenetics, Joslin Diabetes Center, and Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
A major stumbling block for research on and treatment of type 1 diabetes is the inability to directly, but noninvasively, visualize the lymphocytic/inflammatory lesions in the pancreatic islets. One potential approach to surmounting this impediment is to exploit MRI of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) to visualize changes in the microvasculature that invariably accompany inflammation. MNP-MRI did indeed detect vascular leakage in association with insulitis in murine models of type 1 diabetes, permitting noninvasive visualization of the inflammatory lesions in vivo in real time. We demonstrate, in proof-of-principle experiments, that this strategy allows one to predict, within 3 days of completing treatment with an anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody, which NOD mice with recent-onset diabetes are responding to therapy and may eventually be cured. Importantly, an essentially identical MNP-MRI strategy has previously been used with great success to image lymph node metastases in prostate cancer patients. This success strongly argues for rapid translation of these preclinical observations to prediction and/or stratification of type 1 diabetes and treatment of individuals with the disease; this would provide a crucially needed early predictor of response to therapy.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
I have heard from several people that have had an MRI that (a) it is almost impossible to get scheduled in any reasonable timeframe for one and (b) they are 'incredibly expensive'.
:)
For something like diabetes that can be diagnosed in other ways, I don't see a normal doctor or health insurance company prescribing an MRI. Health care is one of the areas where capitalism is really the wrong motivation (because our long term health is not their concern - just short term costs).
I guess I'm just cynical, but I see some of these great advances being almost useless to the majority of people because they simply can't afford it or don't even have healthcare.
I keep hoping for things to change though
This is quite the breakthrough, and these things seem to happen out of technology we already have but just haven't used it in the right way. Personally, I'd settle for a cure for cancer being found on a Windows box if it meant saving lives. :(
Perhaps this wonderful new technology will be used by insurance companies to deny your child insurance before the diabetes could possibly cut into their profit margins?
Sorry. There should be a "cynic" moderation.
fifth sigma, inc.
Another good reason to not take medical advice from Slashdot. They're talking about type 1, not type 2. Type 1 is caused by the immune system. It's closer to MS than it is to type 2. As a parent of a type 1 diabetic, it's hard to not take the misinformation too seriously when I see that my 5 year old faces a future of seizures (from too low blood sugar) or blindness, amputation, kidney failure, and painful neuropathies (from high blood sugar). I know you're just passing on your wisdom, but it would be nice if you had bothered to know what you were talking about first.
And about saving the taxpayers money, well they are close to a cure for type 1, but since it's underfunded and the stem cell issues it will take far longer than it should. So, you're paying for type 1 treatment right now -- I have to stab my boy's fingers about 15 times a day - those strips are a buck each. Not to mention the 6K pump, hundreds of dollars in consumables for the pump every month, and the much more likely frequent hospital visits.
So, I say pay now or pay later. For the kids with type 1, they'd appreciate it as a taxpayer if you'd invest a little now to save a lot of money for later.
The way I do it, it does. I go around every level, not stopping to rest if I can help it, and quickly. Also, at that time I was working up two flights. At fifty, I'd go up and down the stairs and watch kids half my age take the elevator and not get there any quicker. As far as the ad homenem comments at the end, they reflect more on you than on me, and show why you're posting as AC. Never did the word "coward" fit so well.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
That first link is complete quackery. There is NO TREATMENT for Type I diabetes except insulin, PERIOD. I'm a diabetic, I know this.
/. deserves everything that happens to them.
There's plenty of treatments for Type I diabetes, providing you don't mind ketoacidosis, hyperglycemia, impotence, blindness and all the other fun side-effects.
Mind you, anyone that takes health advice from
I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but I will say that my doctor considered me to be in good health and getting enough exercise. That's because the mall-walking was only one aspect. I love to walk and never drive anyplace if it's within my walking distance. For me, if it's less than about two miles one way, it's close enough to walk. How far are you willing to walk? Fifty feet?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Back in college I had an Amiga 500 that I loved hacking on (dating myself here), but a guy I knew was not only really into the Amiga, he had to work it into practically every sentence. He'd raise his hand in Compsci classes and brag about how "My Amiga can do that better" and "That's so much easier on My Amiga". Even I grew sick of hearing the word "Amiga". He earned the derisive nickname "Amiga Man".
Apparently he's now "Linux Man"and works for Slashdot.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Check these sites, how to prevent and reverse it The above are almost laughable, laughable if some people, too many people didnt actually believe it. Diabetes is not a conspiracy to sell drugs, just a really bad disease. Think about it just for a second, insurance companies pay out millions every year in treating the symptoms of diabetes, you think they are not desparate for a cure? I am a type 1 diabetic have been for 25+ years since i was 3 years old. For my own education i have spent countless hours finding out about the disease. Treatmented with vitamins, i mean really? Vitamins are an order of magnitude or more cheaper than insulins, if it worked you would think it would be a fairly common treatment by now.... - Robert
As a doctor, I had a few observations about this
... how often would
stusdy. These researchers demonstrated that an
MRI can find evidence of diabetes in mice before
the development of clinical symptoms. How does
this relate to people?
1. Practical: Type I diabetes typically develops in
children, who usually must be sedated and
observed for an MRI. This could double the cost
of the MRI (typically $1-2k in US). Also, we
don't know how long these findings are present
before diabetes develops
this need to be done?
2. The Incidence of type I diabetes is about
0.4% among people without relatives with
type I. First degree relatives have a 5-30%
risk... Certain genes predispose to type I
diabetes.... maybe this could be used in certain
people.
3. Since there is no such early diagnosis, we
don't really know who we might treat this
pre-type I state. Certainly we could make a
few reasonable guesses, but any benefit is
still in doubt until there are human trials.
I think this will definitely be more handy when
tricorders are perfected!
Building a healthy future; Connecting communities
One of the many Open MRI systems.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
(Disclaimer: I'm a primary care doctor in the USA. I have a few type I diabetics, and many type IIs.)
First, I think it's great that the researchers have demonstrated a potential way to identify pre-clinical type I diabetes. If these patients could be easily identified and the pathologic process halted or reversed, this would be one of the greatest feats ever accomplished in medicine.
However, this approach has several problems. Another poster has already mentioned that health insurance companies could start denying coverage to kids(and adults) who don't have diabetes, but might get it. If you're a health plan administrator, diabetes is a very, very expensive disease and you want to avoid these patients.
(Whether health insurance companies should even be in the business to make a profit is a topic for another debate. Short answer: It's absolutely wrong.)
More importantly, who do you screen with MRI? Do you screen every child at age 5 (or another pre-defined age)? Do you only screen them once? It's true that most type I patients are diagnosed by the early teens, but a significant portion develop the disease in their later teens or twenties. I have a 20 year old patient who was just diagnosed with type I after the birth of her first child. I also had a medical school classmate who was diagnosed while in his residency.
Once you've decided who you'll screen and at what age and interval, how do you pay for it? This cannot be ignored. An abdominal MRI can cost $1-3,000, and you often need to sedate patients because it's quite claustrophobic. If you were to screen every child only once, the cost would skyrocket into billions of dollars almost immediately.
The subject of this thread is not correct for the Slashdot audience. A more appropriate subject would be "Linux cures diabetes."
The reviewer and posters are sort of missing the point, here, which is that if you inject about *2 grams equivalent for a human* i.e. 20 mg/kg of starch coated rust (dextran coated iron oxide) intravenously into a mouse, or presumably a person, you can see where it preferentially leaks out of microscopic blood vessels in areas of inflammation (here inflammation in the pancreatic islets due to autoimmune diabetes) by MRI (changes in the spin relaxation time).
Now that's a hack, to my mind way better than many others.
The entire pdf of the original article is available free on Biomed Central. Incidentally, resolution is not too important here, so this should work for "low field MRI", which uses ordinary magnets (.01-.1 Tesla), and costs about 10% of ordinary MRI (exclusive of technician and radiologist fees), i.e. a real currently existing "tricorder"
Troll aside, you're incorrectly generalizing your case to the rest of the population, and thus misinforming other people. Obesity does indeed strongly predispose one towards developing Type II diabetes, though it is neither always sufficient nor mandatory. If you are obese, you are at considerably greater risk of developing diabetes than if you were not. Just because you felt like you were getting enough exercise when you developed diabetes doesn't mean that sendentary habits can't cause diabetes in others. Also you never commented on whether you were obese at the time you developed diabetes.
Also, if you're going to accuse someone of attacking you, at least spell the latin correctly.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Yes.
I love these questions! They do the same thing on NPR. "Mr. So-and-So, do you think that this Gaza strip pullout will mean that peace negotiations can continue, thereby creating a harmonious world balance where children hold hands and laugh gaily, frolicing through streets lined with happy merchants selling kumquats at a mere 15 cents for a dozen? Yes or no?"
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
This new technique is neat because it works at smaller applied magnetic fields, of order a few Gauss (Earth's field is ~1/3 - 1/2 Gauss). This means you don't need big bulky claustrophobic expensive helium-cooled superconducting electromagnets, but can use simpler, cheaper coils.
Basically, you get injected with a bunch of small particles of magnetite, which magnetically saturate at low fields. If you hit an unsaturated particle with a varying magnetic field, its magnetization varies and it gives a signal that can be detected by a readout coil. When the particle is saturated by a few Gauss field, then additional field variation doesn't change the magnetization, and so there isn't much signal out.
By scanning an applied semi-static few-Gauss field, with a gradient so that the field is zero in some region, you can differentially look for signal in the zero region. By scanning this zero region around the body, you can cover the entire body region by region and so build up a 3-D image of where the magnetite particles are.
(This is assuming that this is the same technique as was reported in Nature a few weeks ago.)
It may not be worth spotting early if it turns out to be curable after the fact, which it might ultimately be. Though I would imagine that if swelling of the pancreas can be spotted on an MRI, so can a lot of other things they haven't yet thought to look for. This might end up being a broad, multi-purpose diagnostic that is cost-justified because it eliminates so many other procedures.
:/
I can see it going either way.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
- Most diabetics are "type 2", which usually dont have anything to do with pancreatic inflamation.
- Even for "type 1's" or peole at risk of type 1, what are they supposed to do, get a MRI every day, at $800 per scan?
- Even so, even if an inflammation is found, what can be done? Be on immuno-surpressors for a long long time?
This sounds like a technique more usueful for ivory-tower research on the progression of inflamation, not terribly useful to the end sufferer.I'm glad it runs Linux because everyone knows that MRIs cost so much and are so complicated only because they run Windows. I bet now that they are running Linux, a MRI will only cost about $20 and any 10th grader will be able to operate it.
Another added benefit will be its superior security. I'd hate all those MRI machines connected straight to the internet to be vulnerable to hacking. Someone could take control and give a patient a superdose and inadvertantly give them superpowers!
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs