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Scientists Coax Human Embryonic Stem Cells Into Making Insulin
First time accepted submitter kwiecmmm writes A group of Harvard scientists reported that they have figured out how to turn embryonic stem cells into beta cells capable of producing insulin. This discovery could cure diabetes. From the article: "'It's a huge landmark paper. I would say it's bigger than the discovery of insulin,' says Jose Olberholzer, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois. 'The discovery of insulin was important and certainly saved millions of people, but it just allowed patients to survive but not really to have a normal life. The finding of Doug Melton would really allow to offer them really something what I would call a functional cure. You know, they really wouldn't feel anymore being diabetic if they got a transplant with those kind of cells.'"
Because, how much easier does it get than lifting stuff from a dead guy?
Of course, when the problem you're facing is insulin resistance, this isn't going to help you all that much. ;)
Ezekiel 23:20
Abort that fetus today, you could save a diabetic person's foot...
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
If they're made from someone else, the patient has to take immunosuppresive drugs. That sets them up for weird infections. If they're made from the patient's own cells, they'd still have to deal with the autoimmune response that destroyed the original beta cells in the first place (assuming type 1 diabetes).
that ancient sci-fi novel which has transplants (the old-school equivalent of stem cells) promoting the death penalty for all crimes, due to a need for parts.
My name is Wilfred Brimly, and I approve this diabeetus message.
Congratulations to Melton and crew for this amazing discovery. The pessimist in me, though, says that this will never make it to market: Why would pharma companies want to make a once-off sale to diabetics that would cure them in 10 days when they can continue to milk money out of them by selling products and supplies that need to be used multiple times per day for life?
This story is really saying that this could cure juvenile diabetes -- it does not address adult-onset diabetes. Adult onset diabetes has a lot to do with insulin resistance in all of the cells in the body, and cannot get cured by simply pumping in more and more insulin.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
"I would say it's bigger than the discovery of insulin"
The reason it is not going to ever be bigger than the discovery of insulin is that insulin was wildly used with good effect and this will probably never see the inside of a hospital and within a year no one will even remember it! (along with the thousand other countless 'high hopes' that have crossed the internet news wires)....
Less of some types of carbs, yes, but more other stuff too: https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr... ...
"Excess weight interferes with insulin's functions, and is the primary risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes. Therefore the most effective treatment for type 2 diabetes is significant weight loss. However, the primary mode of treatment by physicians today is glucose-lowering medication. These medications give a false sense of security, providing implicit permission to continue the same disease-causing diet and lifestyle that allowed diabetes to develop in the first place. Many of these medications promote weight gain -- making the patient more diabetic; most importantly, these medications do not prevent diabetes from progressing and causing complications.
The key to diabetes reversal is superior nutrition and exercise. It may take a little extra effort, but avoiding the tragic complications of diabetes and a premature death is well worth it. My diabetes-reversal diet is vegetable-based with a high nutrient to calorie ratio, containing lots of greens and beans, other non-starchy vegetables, (such as mushrooms, eggplant, tomatoes and onions), raw nuts and seeds, and limited fresh fruit with no sweeteners or white flour products. When diabetics eat in this style, they lose their excess weight -- the cause of their diabetes -- quickly and easily, reducing or eliminating their need for medications and they also flood the body with disease-protective and healing micronutrients and phytochemicals that aid the body's recovery and self-repair mechanism."
For Type II diabetics, such a diet with weight loss brings the body's ability to respond to glucose in line with the remaining capacity to make it as needed. Exercise that builds more muscles and that is done when sugar is spiking can also help in managing glucose levels.
For Type I diabetics however, where the body can't produce much glucose at all if any, this improved diet/exercise is not enough, even if it can improve the situation some what as far as reducing complications. For Type I diabetics, this sort of breakthrough with stem cells, if it works, would be truly amazing.
Sometimes type I diabetics are really misdiagnosed type II, and vice versa, so there is a small level of confusion here where sometimes diet works when you would not expect etc..
BTW, vitamin D deficiency (from lack of natural sunlight) may be involved with the autoimmune response that could cause type I diabetes or perhaps make type II worse.
More from Furhman:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
http://www.amazon.com/The-End-...
More from others:
http://www.rawfor30days.com/
http://www.fatsickandnearlydea...
https://www.drmcdougall.com/he...
http://articles.mercola.com/si...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/hea...
http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/0...
The deeper issue is that our brains and microbiomes are adapted for a scarcity of refined carbs, and we struggle with the abundance of cheap ones:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/libra...
"Scientific evidence suggests that the re-sensitization of taste nerves takes between 30 and 90 days of consistent exposure to less stimulating foods. This means
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
You know, they really wouldn't feel anymore being diabetic if they got a transplant with those kind of cells.
Either there's something very wrong with this sentence or I just had a small stroke.
says Jose Olberholzer, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois. 'The discovery of insulin was important and certainly saved millions of people, but it just allowed patients to survive but not really to have a normal life. ...'
Sure, having to test yourself several times a day and shoot yourself at least daily isn't technically normal but people whose diabetes is under control with insulin and who are otherwise healthy can lead productive lives just like the rest of us.
If you want to talk about a medical treatment that " just allowed patients to survive but not really to have a normal life" talk about the iron lung or something along those lines.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Since they can take cheek cells and turn them into stem cells, then from there into Beta cells to produce insulin, then I would love to be on the testing list for this...
Jason Brisbane
...I'm going to Mass General in November for the Phase 2 trial of BCG treatment of Type 1 diabetics with the aim of turning off the immune response that kills beta cells in the first place. But even if the trial is successful, it won't grow back my beta cells. Coupled with the advances in TFA, it is an effective cure.
I'm certain it will work too, because the apocalypse is right around the corner, and I'm in a hurry to be cured of this disease before the rapture. That way I can live a long, full life here on earth with the interesting people once all the thumpers go up to heaven.
The key to diabetes reversal is superior nutrition and exercise. It may take a little extra effort,
I just love phrases like this. "A little extra effort' indeed. Pretty much every diabetic patient gets counseled to lose weight. They get sent to dieticians. They get nagged at by their insurance company hot line. They don't lose weight.
Hence the drugs which do pretty much what you say they do and have some real, but hardly earthshattering, effect on the disease. If it were 'just' a matter of losing weight then we would 1) not be in the middle of an obesity and diabetes epidemic and 2) not having this conversation. But long term weight loss IS a big deal. So much so that the first person or persons to come up with a method that doesn't involve the usual suspects (changing one's diet and exercising more) gets booted into the top 0.1% instantly.
And yes, we have all seen the anecdotal stories of brave Slashdotters who have gone from next week's heart attack candidate to a lean macho machine by some combination of willpower, Doritos avoidance and free weights. But as we've all seen, the group of people that is the Slashdot community has little in common with the Rest of Them.
Weight loss is hard. Very hard. Especially in a population of random people.
And, BTW, Vitamin D is the current wonderthing. The vast majority of claims will undoubtedly be found to be spurious for reasons that we have amply documented in other threads.
but avoiding the tragic complications of diabetes and a premature death is well worth it.
We're doomed.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Really? Easily reversible you say. Sounds legit because like you I'm positive that type 2 diabetics are all just a bunch of idiots. They just have to read your post to discover the cure.
Good advice generally but tomatoes are like candy to a diabetic and not a good idea.
Well, the alternative would seem to involve somehow subverting free will. Or maybe a pill that makes sugar taste disgusting. (actually, that might work...)
Personally I say let the diabetics eat themselves to an early grave - they knew the risks, they knew the solution, if they chose junkfood over a long healthy life then that's their choice. Maybe it's even the choice that maximizes their total lifetime happiness. But they'd better not come crying to me when Death comes knocking on their door - I have very little patience for people who try to dodge responsibility for their actions.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
In fact we continue to produce them, its that our anti bodies kill them off faster, so unless this new type of cell is immune from the attacks from the immune system, then it means nothing.
...that before long, VHS cells will be developed and they'll kill off the Beta cells.
Honestly, the hardest thing about subverting free will is actually chasing down a demonstrable instance of it to subvert.
The business of modifying people's behaviors and decisions, on the other hand, at least at the "all of the people some of the time or some of the people all of the time" population level is absolutely ubiquitous, rather effective, and at least as old as civilization.
....aaaaand it'll be gone.
(for "bioethics zealots" read: "GSK shills")
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
The other question I have is, is this really a cure? It sounds more like a 'permanent treatment' for the individual (which is a good thing). Genetically they still carry the gene that could pass down diabetes to the next generation.
I wonder if the next (or even real) step to proclaiming a cure to a hereditary disease like diabetes is being able to change a person's DNA so that they no longer have the disease and can't pass it on to their descendents.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
There's been a few things made from adult stem cells. This may end up being one of them after a bit more work, so that then cells from the intended recipient can be taken, altered, grown and transplanted. Then it's functionally like a skin graft.
In Type1 the body attacks the insulin producing cells so simply implanting them in a diabetic would only fix the problem until the body kills off the new cells. You would have to protect the new insulin producing cells for this to be a 'cure'.
Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits--and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health. Instead, most people think that if they were to eat more healthfully, they would be condemned to a life of greatly reduced gustatory pleasure--thinking that the process of Phase IV will last forever.
This meshes with my own observations when I switched to a low-carb diet. I found that I'd eat and still "feel" hungry. The low-carb solution is to just allow yourself to eat more in this case, but to still stay away from the carbs. Your brain then learns that cramming more food in your mouth no longer produces the sensations it is looking for, and it becomes easier to not eat so much. I felt a bit like a rat in a Skinner box pushing the button and not getting any food, and just like the rat in the Skinner box I eventually stopped pushing the button so much.
The change in tastes definitely happened. In the beginning I would make myself low-carb treats and think they were tasteless. Then after many months I actually had an ice cream sundae and thought that it almost tasted sickeningly sweet. I don't really make myself low carb treats all that much these days, but when I do I often just stick with erythritol and don't even bother with adding more sweetener, which should resulting in something maybe half as sweet as a normal treat.
Joint replacements are typically for a decade or two - a common failure mode is the vast number of tiny bits of bone that get ground off when the metal scrapes them off get attacked by the immune system and then it starts eating into the bone where the joint is anchored, eventually leading to it being too weak and replacement is needed on fresh bone, requiring a larger joint. Similarly getting a decade or two out of beta cells is still a pretty big deal. It doesn't have to last fifty or seventy years per operation to be useful.
I thought one of the problems with diabetes was not having the _right_ amount of insulin, corresponding to the levels of blood sugar?
I've seen the effects of too much insulin, and it ain't pretty. (It's called hypoglycemia, folks.) So just stuffing a bunch of insulin producer cells in a person's system is not going to be the solution.