Human Trials for new “Diabetes Cure” (Vaccine)
Most diabetes sufferers could be cured within four years if a revolutionary treatment involving the BCG vaccine works, scientists said yesterday.
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The vaccine destroyed abnormal white blood cells obstructing the production of insulin, which is needed to prevent diabetes, she said.The first step in the human study is to determine whether the same strategy using BCG vaccination can be used to modify the abnormal autoimmune cells present in type 1 diabetes, sometimes called “juvenile-onset” diabetes.
Not sure if this is worth getting excited about. The “abnormal white blood cells” cause an autoimmune attack (current theories point towards opportunist viral infections as the most likely trigger) which kills off the beta cells in your pancreas needed for insulin cell production. Destroying those cell would act like extinguishing a forest fire: it might not get worse, but nothing else is going to grow until trees (cells) are replanted.
Maybe if stem cell therapy was put in the mix? At any rate, all of these recent “cures” seem to only be effective for new diabetics who still have some beta cells left. This is fine — frankly, I think new/young diabetics SHOULD be the focus of current research — but I wish they’d stop using the word “cure”; it gets disheartening.
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