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Mon 13 Dec, 2004 02:52 pm
Now HERE is a possible good news story!!! Not just for potential sufferers, but for health systems - diabetes being so firmly linked to numerous other medical problems, from heart disease and strokes, to blindness.
Diabetes vaccine trials to begin
The vaccine could mean no more insulin injections
A vaccine that could cure Type 1 diabetes is to be tested on people for the first time.
King's College London and Bristol University have recruited 72 diabetic patients for the trials in late Spring.
The vaccine works by stopping the destruction of pancreas cells that produce insulin, which is needed to break down sugar in the normal way.
If successful, they will recruit more volunteers with the help of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Human trials
People with Type 1 diabetes tend to develop the condition before the age of 40 and have to inject themselves with the hormone insulin every day.
Without these injections their blood sugar would become dangerously high and they would die.
It will be of help for people who have just been diagnosed.
Dr Colin Dayan from the University of Bristol
Scientists have long been looking for a way to cure the condition.
Although the exact cause of Type 1 diabetes is unknown, the body's defence system is thought to be involved, mounting an abnormal attack on its own cells.
The two UK teams believe they have found a way to prevent this self-destruction.
The vaccine contains a protein that encourages the production of protective immune cells to defend the cells in the pancreas against attack.
After successful results in mice, the UK researchers are now ready to test their vaccine in humans.............
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4091399.stm
Diabetes is such a great condition. So many of us have it that the money is definately right to support research.
The money is also good for supressing research! So, where's the kitty-cat vaccination news....?
Get in line, littlek. Rats and mice first, ya know, and they work their way up through people. When it's perfected, they try it on the cats.
But seriously, if this vaccine works, it would be a blessing to a lot of people. I'm not sure how it is around the world, but here in Ontario, diabetes is epidemic, funding for research sparse, and specialists very hard to find.
So, what's behind diabetes anyway? If they're offering a vaccine, it would seem it's viral.....? I thought that one was predisposed, genetically, and that you could get it young or older after a lifetime of bad diet.
Some sort of auto-immune thing, it is thought.
I read up a little. The vaccine injects a protien needed to produce insulin. I wonder if you need to get frequent injections, or if one will do.
ZHmmmm - less often than smegging insulin, at least, I would think.
And, the system would likely, I guess, be more efficient at regulating your BGs.
bump......
Any more news on this?
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