[Diabetes-talk] FW: [acb-diabetics] FW: Chicago Tribune Listing -Take a look! sent from Rob

[Diane]

Thanks Mike,
I have been following Faustmans research!
Diane
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
To: "Diabetes Talk for the Blind" <diabetes-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2011 12:57 PM
Subject: [Diabetes-talk] FW: [acb-diabetics] FW: Chicago Tribune 
Listing -Take a look! sent from Rob


>
>
>
>
> From: acb-diabetics-bounces at acb.org [mailto:acb-diabetics-bounces at acb.org]
> On Behalf Of Patricia LaFrance-Wolf
> Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2011 11:12 AM
> To: Acb-Diabetics at Acb. Org
> Subject: [acb-diabetics] FW: Chicago Tribune Listing - Take a look! sent
> from Rob
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  _____
>
> From: Robertglafrance at Hotmail.com [mailto:Robertglafrance at Hotmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2011 1:05 AM
> To: plawolf at earthlink.net
> Subject: Chicago Tribune Listing - Take a look! sent from Rob
>
>
>
> Rob recommends this article to you!
>
> This is why he recommends the article to you. Interesting
>
> Is BCG a cure for diabetes? The long road to acceptance
>
> from the Chicago Tribune
>
> The first trial in a handful of humans has suggested that injecting 
> patients
> with Type 1 diabetes with an inexpensive vaccine normally used to prevent
> tuberculosis can block destruction of insulin-secreting pancreatic cells
> <http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-bcg-diabetes-20110625,0,6341862.story>
> in humans and allow regeneration of the pancreas. Such a finding, if
> confirmed and expanded on, could lay the foundation for freeing the
> estimated 1 million U.S. Type 1 diabetics from their daily insulin shots. 
> It
> brings up a word that is rarely or never used in considering the disease:
> "cure." Such an outcome is still a long way in the future, but Dr. Denise
> Faustman of Massachusetts General Hospital has already come a long way in
> her quest to find a new treatment paradigm for diabetes.
>
> Researchers have always assumed that insulin-secreting cells could never 
> be
> regenerated. Once they are gone, they are gone forever, the theory held.
> Scientists have thus focused on ways to prevent their loss -- such as by
> developing vaccines that will halt the immune system's attack on the
> pancreas before all the cells are destroyed -- or by transplanting
> replacement cells from a donor. The first approach has not yet shown much
> success, and the second has provided only limited benefits.
> Insulin-secreting cells for transplants are difficult to obtain in 
> quantity,
> provoke a strong immune response and require immunosuppressive drugs. They
> can "cure" diabetes, freeing patients from their insulin secretions, but 
> the
> benefits often disappear with time.
>
> Faustman started out as a transplanter, learning her technique from Dr. 
> Paul
> Lacey of Washington University of St. Louis, a pioneer in the field. When
> she came to Mass General in 1985, she was confident that she could do the
> transplants better than other researchers and that her attempts would
> succeed. For one of the few times in her life, however, it turned out that
> she was wrong.
>
> She decided to go back into the lab and attempt to figure out why the
> transplants were failing. Most researchers had studied transplants in mice
> in which the pancreas was artificially destroyed. Faustman decided to look
> at mice that, like humans, had a strong propensity to develop diabetes
> naturally. She found that the transplants failed in those animals just 
> like
> they had in her human trials, and she eventually determined that the
> rodents' immune systems were attacking the transplanted cells just like 
> they
> had their own pancreases.
>
> Eventually, she developed a two-pronged attack. First she injected the 
> mice
> with Freund's Complete Adjuvant, a mixture of water, oil and parts of dead
> bacteria that is sometimes used to increase the power of vaccines. The
> adjuvant overstimulated the immune cells that were attacking the pancreas,
> causing them to self-destruct. She also injected the rodents with BCG, 
> known
> formally as bacillus Calmette-Guerin, which has been used for 80 years as 
> a
> preventive for tuberculosis. It stimulated the production of another 
> immune
> component, called tumor necrosis factor or TNF, that kills the cells that
> were attacking the pancreas.
>
> Faustman's goal was simply to prevent the attack on islet cells of the
> pancreas so that a new transplant could have a chance to take hold. To her
> great surprise, however, the treated mice began producing insulin again --  
> a
> finding that contradicted everything researchers believed about diabetes.
> Eventually, however, other labs were able to replicate her results.
>
> In subsequent papers, Faustman showed that the new insulin-secreting cells
> were being produced by the spleen, a fist-sized organ that plays a crucial
> role in recycling blood cells. First, she demonstrated that the cure of 
> the
> mice could be accelerated by injecting extra spleen cells into the 
> animals.
> Then she transplanted male spleens into female mice undergoing the 
> treatment
> and demonstrated that the insulin-producing cells were male in origin.
>
> Very little research has been conducted in humans about what happens to
> patients after their spleens have been removed for medical reasons. But
> Faustman found two studies, one of British patients with pancreatitis and
> one of children with beta-thalassemia, in which their spleens had been
> removed. In both groups, many of the patients developed diabetes within 
> five
> years after their surgery. These findings suggest that the spleen plays a
> key role in regulating glucose uptake.
>
> Faustman had great difficulty obtaining research funds because her ideas
> were so contrary to the prevailing wisdom. One person who believed in her,
> however, was Lee A. Iacocca, the former chief of Chrysler Corp., whose 
> wife
> Mary died of diabetes. Iacocca wrote her a check for $1 million and by 
> 2006,
> his Iacocca Family Foundation had raised more than $11 million for her
> research.
>
> She is now gearing up for a larger, phase 2 clinical trial of the 
> technique.
> More information about her research can be obtained here
> <http://www.faustmanlab.org>  and those interested in participating in the
> trials can e-mail her at diabetestrial at partners.org. But be warned there 
> is
> already a long waiting list.
>
>
>
> Click here to view this article <http://tribwww.gumiyo.com/k/XJdqgFG>
>
>


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