Immune System re-education may be the best hope for diabetes cure

Diabetes (Type 1) as you know is an auto-immune disease where our own cells attack the insulin generating islet cells, thereby progressively reducing the insulin generation capability of the body.

The challenge with any treatment protocol which seeks to replace the destroyed cells is that the underlying auto-immune response has not been cured. Edmonton protocol and other similar pancreas transplant or islet transplant protocols tries to address this by weakening the immune system of the body with plethora of drugs like Cyclosporine A, Cellcept etc. These drugs has serious side-effects including affecting the very organ they are intended to protect over long term, making the body vulnerable to myriad infections etc.

As you can easily infer from the above that the best solution to the problem would be to re-train the immune system not to attack the islet cells. At that point it would simply be a matter of time till the islet cells regenerate from the remaining precursor cells or from donated cells.

And doctors have found out exactly that.

“We have found that it is possible to rapidly regrow islets from adult precursor cells, something that many thought could not be done,” says Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director of the MGH Immunobiology Laboratory and principal investigator of the study. “By accomplishing effective, robust and durable islet regeneration, this discovery opens up an entirely new approach to diabetes treatment.”

David M. Nathan, MD, director of the MGH Diabetes Center, notes, “These exciting findings in a mouse model of Type 1 diabetes suggest that patients who are developing this disease could be rescued from further destruction of their insulin-producing cells. In addition, patients with fully established diabetes possibly could have their diabetes reversed.”

Nothing could be more exciting then this!

Editors Note: The original news release can be found here.