Diabetes: Of Mice and Men- Mice Cured of Diabetes

Seven years ago, when Denise Faustman found that she had a cure for type-1 diabetes in mice, she was denied the opportunity to start clinical trials on humans by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Nor did she receive any support from pharma companies.
In 2003, Faustman successfully treated more mice with type-1, but her application was rejected again by the JDRF. However they did finance three rivals to test her theories. In March of 2006, these tests proved Faustman to be right; about 1/3 of the mice were cured.

Juvenile or type-1 diabetes is marked by the lack of insulin production by the pancreas, often due to immune cells erroneously destroying the beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Without insulin breaking down ingested sugar, glucose mounts up in blood, so diabetics have to take injections to replace the insulin that the body is not generating, and keep on blood sugar levels. Diabetes can lead to many other problems like cardiac arrests, strokes, kidney failure and nerve damage that results in amputation.
Faustman produced her remarkable results by giving the animals Bacillus Calmette-Guerin or BCG. Used for over four decades as an anti-TB vaccine, Faustman found that BCG wipes out immune cells named killer T-cells. This prevents the immune system from consuming beta cells, and the latter restored themselves enough to create insulin to cure diabetes in the mice.

It was the Iacocca Foundation who offered to fund clinical trials with a sum of $11.5 million. Lee Iacocca had set up this organization after the death of his wife from this very disease.
Now, test cases will be injected with BCG and checked for unfavourable reactions to rate safety. The aim is to see whether humans will be as benefited by this treatment as the mice were.
Fasutman’s research will be tested, and patients and the medical fraternity will soon know whether she has made a breakthrough in the treatment of diabetes, or whether it is only a false hope.

This article is the property of MyViews.info, Copying and Publishing the content is strictly prohibited.