'IMAX Movie of Body' Allows Stanford Geneticist To Stop Diabetes In Its Tracks 137
sciencehabit writes "Michael Snyder has taken 'know thyself' to the next level. Over a 14-month period, the molecular geneticist analyzed his blood 20 different times to pluck out a wide variety of biochemical data depicting the status of his body's immune system, metabolism, and gene activity. In yesterday's issue of Cell (abstract), Snyder and a team of 40 other researchers present the results of this extraordinarily detailed look at his body, which they call an integrative personal omics profile (iPOP) because it combines cutting-edge scientific fields such as genomics (study of one's DNA), metabolomics (study of metabolism), and proteomics (study of proteins). Instead of seeing a snapshot of the body taken during the typical visit to a doctor's office, iPOP effectively offers an IMAX movie, which in Snyder's case had the added drama of charting his response to two viral infections and the emergence of type 2 diabetes."
Eh, Type 2 (Score:4, Informative)
Let me know when they can stop, and reverse, Type 1.
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Type 1 is autoimmune diabetes, Type 2 is "everything else". That can be reduced insulin sensitivity, not producing enough insulin to support your body mass (which is why we equate fat=diabetic), and gestational diabetes where an increase in hormones prevents insulin from entering cells. The sources of the diseases are vastly different, but both result in increased blood sugar.
The test to determine if you are type 1 or type 2 specifically looks for the immune system antibody (Islet of Langerhan antibody) in
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Keep a finger on the pulse of "eyelet transplantation" (ie, from a healthy donor, into a Type 1 Diabetes sufferer) and the techniques that follow on its heals. (A while ago, ET required suppressing the person's immune system, but - after all these years of research - there must be some improved treatments; we no longer follow the trail.)
Not Eyelets, but Islets (Score:4, Informative)
"eyelet transplantation" (ie, from a healthy donor, into a Type 1 Diabetes sufferer)
For the sake of helping any searchers not miss a load of references through searching on "eyelets" ....
These are "islets", not "eyelets", i.e. "Islets of Langerhans" (named for the scientist who first described them), they are little islands of special tissue in the pancreas gland, and they contain the beta-cells that normally make insulin, and in Type-1 diabetes they fail after attack by autoimmune processes. Their transplantation has been both promising and problematic, and as the parent post noted, tissue rejection problems have been met by immunosuppression.
-wb-
Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, Michael Snyder [stanford.edu] doesn't look like the extreme cheeseburger eating type. A Google search for him [stanford.edu] shows some full body shots. From the article, it sounds like they have evidence of a viral + genetic cause for type 2 diabetes.
Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:4, Informative)
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From reading into this a bit (hadn't known of it)... post transplanet diabetes doesn't seem to be immune as much as the medications used for immunosuppression screwing up the bodies tolerances/handling.
The immune system isn't causing it- the side effects of the meds are, basically.
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And who was mother to Cain and Able's children? This is what you want to stake your reputation on?
Noah (Score:3)
And who was mother to Cain and Able's children?
For the first 1650-odd years in the Bible's continuity, there weren't yet enough lethal equivalents [medilexicon.com] in the gene pool for inbreeding to be a problem. After this, there was a great population bottleneck as a side effect of a divine intervention to flood the Nephilim off the face of the planet, and human life span declined sharply.
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And who was mother to Cain and Able's children? This is what you want to stake your reputation on?
Abel didn't have any children. Cain's wife came from the people created on the sixth day. Notice the beginning of chapter two, where it describes the garden (and Adam/Eve) having a separate creation timeline? Adam was created before the sixth day, but on the sixth day, humanity was created. We don't know how long it took for Adam to feel lonely and want a mate, but Eve was probably created before the sixth day too.
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Ahh... No. And take a look at this persons picture http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/assets/2012/03/16/sn-snyder.jpg [sciencemag.org] for proof.
Too bad that with all the resources available today we still can not cure the stupid commenter on Slashdot.
Stupid commenter (Score:2)
RTFA on what the results mean (Score:2)
The article comments that he's not the typical fat person who you'd expect to get Type 2 diabetes (and my blood sugar is just fine, thank you very much :-) That's what made it surprising when it showed up - but the article also comments on it being an "N=1" kind of result, so it's still just a well-documented anecdote, not up to being a real theory yet. But it's the kind of thing that now they can do more research about.
Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
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right.. and they developed insulin resistance because of the cheeseburgers and twinkies. stop trying to hide the ball.
Make it my fault (Score:2)
Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Causality is tricky, but not without answers. If avoiding cheeseburgers and twinkies causes you *not* to get T2D even if you are predisposed, I would say that both are causal factors and are right to blame. However, the *type* of environmental factor also plays in. If you feed a cat paracetamol, it will die. Does this simply "reveal" a underlying condition? Is the cat sick to start with? Feeding the cat the substance is what killed it, but the reason it died from it is biological and exposure to a substance it would not encounter in nature. If you happened uppon a cat that survived, THAT would be the oddity.
If you are born with relevant genes, you are, and need to look out. You carry one of many polymophisms in the gene pool, but you are not sick or nessearily abnormal. It just means that under a heavy diet with little exercise - an unnatural lifestyle - you might get sick faster than others. It's *multifactoral*, like most conditions we can get. If you are not very good at skydiving, you should not skydive even if everyone you know does. Cheeseburgers and sedentary lifestyle need to take the blame more than genetics.
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Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry if I offended you somehow or made my post seem redundant, that was never my intention /: I was trying to add to the discussion by saying that I think the overeating and lack of physical activity is more fair to see as the primary causes of type 2 diabetes rather than genetics, and that by blaming the genes we're ignoring the point [nih.gov] that our bodies might not be build for our current way of life (: I would rather say that modern life has revealed that some people are not as well adapted as others to that lifestyle.
Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:4, Informative)
1. I'm a type 2 Diabetic.
2. I stand 6'1", and currently weigh 211 lbs. I have a 32" waist and can (and regularly do) bench press 295. I run 9 miles a week.
3. Despite this, I still use pills to control my condition. I still have to have quarterly exams. including several hundred dollars in tests each time.
4. I have better than average response to the meds, see fewer side effects than the average user, and unlike many diabetics, can get by on just a couple of generic drugs that don't cost me much. I have not had to change up to any of the more espensive drugs since I started. Less than a third of the type 2 diabetics under treatment can make that claim. .
So on behalf of all the type 2's who have cut their weight, exercised, and stopped eating sugary foods but still have a serious medical condition, I'd like to offer a hearty "Fuck you, you ignorant idiot!" (I don't usually stoop to such language, but it's obvious that nothing less could possible get through to somebody like you). Really, you are spitting in the faces of thens or hundreds of thousands of people you never met, who have successfully fought a battle I doubt seriously you could win, and you are revealing you are unfamiliar with both the facts about a serious disease and fundamental human decency. I'm torn between being furious with you and pitying you.
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The vast majority of those with Type 2 could help their cause with a bit of self care. Kudos to you however for taking those steps first and
Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry but carbs in general are not the enemy people make them out to be, nor is eliminating them from your diet a cure for type 2. There also are multiple factors that are linked as possible causes of type 2. In terms of type 2 caused by obesity (I have a family member dealing with this right now), the main goal is to increase exercise, improve diet and reduce weight. This does not require the elimination of carbs as a whole from the diet. Reducing or elimination of foods high in sugar content (especially soda) can greatly help, but there is no need to eliminate carbs sourced from grain. Additionally, there is the whole concept of thermodynamics in which consuming less than you use regardless of source will cause weight loss. Drinking soda is a good way to push your intake above your expenditure without even realizing it.
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Grains may be the most evil carbs of all.
I refer you to http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/ [wheatbellyblog.com]
tl;dr - between gluten mucking with our brain proteins and the super blood sugar spiking features of grains, our idea that this is some sort of healthy food is terribly misplaced.
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Type 2 diabetes is caused by carbohydrate intake. Stop eating carbs, and the type 2 diabetes goes away.
It doesn't. It never goes away, once you have it.
And the "stop eating carbs" is nonsense. It is not carbohydrates per se, it is carbohydrates in very easily digestable form that transform into blood sugar very quickly and require massive amounts of insulin that are the problem. Sugar obviously, but also the fluffed up wheat "bread" that they are selling (in the USA they have a product called "Wonderbread" which manages to get 100 out of 100 points on the carb evilness scale).
And diet coke doesn't help
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It'd be nice if people knew what they were talking about before they started moving their fingers...
Excess calories and inactivity cause weight gain and eventually type 2 in many people. You may most certainly fully reverse this by losing the weight you gained, eating smarter and exercising more.
Carbs? Other than having a world population that is so big that its dependent on grains, roots and whatnot to feed all these people, I'm not sure why we consume carbs that require processing to be edible.
Who I fin
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Excess fat accumulation is caused by chronically elevated insulin levels, because fat cells are instructed to hold onto fat (rather than cycle it through the body) under the influence of insulin. Calories are not the forcing variable here (although you may be driven to eat more calories to make up for the calories that have been stored in your fat cells, since your muscle cells are starving).
You might as well say that exce
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Let's be clear - type 2 diabetes, as in "if you eat lots of sugar and starch you'll require insulin injections" never goes away.
However, type 2 diabetes, as in "you need to take insulin injections every day to survive" *can* be overcome. The method is simply - stop eating blood sugar raising carbohydrates.
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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodenum [wikipedia.org]:
80% of obese people who had gastric bypass surgery (bypassing the duodenum) were cured of their type 2 diabetes
And from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodenal_switch [wikipedia.org]:
Type 2 diabetics have had a 98% "cure" (i.e. became euglycemic) almost immediately following surgery which is due to the metabolic effect from the intestine switch. The results are so favorable that some surgeons in Europe are performing the "switch" or intesti
Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:5, Informative)
Type 1 is an autoimmune disease (or at least that's the most widely held belief) where the body's immune system attacks and destroys the insulin producing cells of the pancreas. As a result, the body stops production of insulin and without the administration of external insulin (primarily via injection), you die (quickly).
To reverse the disease, two things are required. One, the body must be trained to not attack the the insulin producing cells. They've experimented with this for quite a while with anti-rejection drugs and similar things, and have had some moderate success. Once this is done, though, it's necessary to get the body to begin producing insulin again. There's some research that indicates the body may be capable of doing this spontaneously once step one is complete (at least in mice). Otherwise, an external source (transplant from a donor or cloning or stem cells or...) of these insulin producing cells will have to be added to the body.
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Diabetics with type 2 first goes through a fase where insulin fails to control blood glucose levels (if you have allot of glucose in your blood, this is sensed by you pacreas and it secretes insulin - a stubstance that signal to the other cells of your body to start absorbing the glucose, and thus reduce how much is circulating). After enough time in this state, your pacreas gives up and stops producing insulin, much like in type 1. So it has two stages.
Autoimunity might be a hypothesis (does type 2 diabe
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I dont think that is correct, I hevent seen any diabetic to get normal by loosing weight, and most of them end up their lives much thinner than they were when diagnosed, even if they were already slim
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I think you have it for life if you have aquired it, but for type 2 diabetes, loosing weight (and exercising) is the primary treatment, and according to the widely used Norwegian Electronic Doctor's Manual (NEL) almost all cases can be prevented by preventing obesity (: They reference an article here [nih.gov], amongst others, for this claim. The goals of therapy is stated to be to reduce the condition to a non-symptomatic one if possible, and this is what weight loss and exercise seems to achieve (but medicines mig
Dr. Fuhrman on curing most Type II diabetes (Score:3)
See also Dr. Fuhrman: http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Diabetes.aspx [drfuhrman.com]
"The vast majority of my patients, who adopt my nutritional and exercise recommendation for diabetes, become thin and nonâ"diabetic. They are able to gradually discontinue their insulin and eventually other medications. They simply get well. I work with people who have diabetes who want to live a long and healthy life and enjoy the achievement and confidence that they have control this disease. The membership services offered here on t
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I dont want to be pesimistic about this, but that sounds exactly like the next miracle product ad on TV.
My guess would be that type two is slowered down a lot by a good regimen (we have know this for long time anyway), but I found it hard to believe that we have a cure and only a handful of doctos in the world know about it, my biased opinion about biology and medecine research does not help a lot, I gotta say :)
Dr. Fuhrman Cures Type 2 Diabetes... (Score:2)
But Drug Companies Object ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_GInjBeQU [youtube.com]
"Joel Fuhrman MD has cured hundreds of people of diabetes using diet and lifestyle. The American Diabetic Association wanted him to write about his work -- but then objected because their sponsor, Eli Lilly drug company, might feel threatened by an MD promoting a cure which could destroy the market for their diabetes medications. This is an excerpt from Dr. Furhman's presentation at the Healthy Lifestyle Expo 2007."
This is the cure, and
Scientific Studies Show Angioplasty ... Worthless (Score:2)
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx [drfuhrman.com]
"Interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery is basically a scam based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heart disease. Searching for and treating obstructive plaque does not address the areas of the coronary vascular tree most likely to rupture and cause heart attacks. If there was never another CABG or angioplasty performed or stent placed, patients with heart disease would be better off. Doctors would be forced to educate our citi
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"I was having a heart attack, a 100% blockage of the lower anterior decending artery. It was a killer heart attack. Without angioplasty and a stent I was dead. Cardiac intervention is corrective medicine. When you need it, you need it."
AC, I can only plead with you to look into Dr. Fuhrman's approach. It is true the article says "almost" worthless, and maybe you were someone who benefitted from a stent for a time -- although were you really informed of all your options? But if you keep eating the same way t
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It is certainly reasonable to be skeptical of such claims; all I ask is you keep an open mind and do some research for yourself.
Again from Marcia Angell, an editor of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine:
http://pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science [pdfernhout.net]
"The problems I've discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every
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Except many people are able to reproduce prior to the disease's onset (even though it is often referred to as juvenile diabetes), and up until 100 years or so ago, there wasn't a treatment, so it had plenty of time to work its way out of the population.
Another aspect to the disease is the lack of a specific cause. It's believed to be partly genetic, and partly environment based, but no one really knows for certain. Even in identical twins, the chances of one developing it after the other has are only 50%.
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No, because they will have time to have kids before they die, therefore it will not be evolved out of the population.
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Hey, serious question, but what exactly would it take to put an end to Type 1? What are the steps needed to do so? How does the illness actually work? Ignorant would be polite, in my case, I know nothing of such diseases. And, I am curious. Maybe I can F/OSS one out in a program. =)
Wikipedia, for some basic knowledge before asking for others to do your "research" for you, would also be polite.
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Some people genuinely enjoy explaining things, and if you don't want to answer it costs you nothing. Calm down.
Let's associate something unnecessary..... (Score:1)
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I'll take a Beowulf cluster of those please. But in Soviet Russia...
1 iPOP
2 IMAX
3 ???
4 Profit!!!
Misleading (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
Except starting in 2014, if all goes well, it will be illegal for them to deny you coverage based on a pre-existing condition. There will also be no annual cap on your doctor visits, etc because they can no longer cap that, either.
AKA HMOs can't say, "Oh, you're only allowed 3 office visits per quarter, and if you go above such and such amount, we cut off you off for the rest of the year."
Re:Misleading (Score:5, Informative)
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But if you cap profit margins as a fixed % how will they increase net profits?
Simple.
Charge more for the same service (or lack thereof).
It's basic math...15% of 20 billion is *DOUBLE* 15% of 10 billion.
They'll have to pass along more to doctors but they'll still get to tell Wall Street their profits went up (yet again).
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There's also nothing to prevent them from simply charging you more than you can afford for said coverage, either.
"Our rates just went up to $1500/month with a doubled deductible. It's three times that for a family of 4. So sorry you can't stay with us."
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There's also nothing to prevent them from simply charging you more than you can afford for said coverage, either.
Right. My family doesn't have health insurance because of a pre-existing condition law. I had a package all set to go that I could afford with a rider for two conditions (each controlled by a $4 generic) but then they realized I was in NH so they couldn't do the rider and would have to charge me $550/mo more for the full coverage.
There's no magic $6600 in my budget, so we're uninsured. Senator
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There's no magic $6600 in my budget, so we're uninsured. Senator Shaheen can kiss my uninsured ass.
Watch out, you might catch someting!
SCNR...
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AND, my small business pays less per employee on the extra taxes than on the premiums we might pay in the USA.
Thus a lot of drugs simply are never released in Canada, or released much later in Canada than in the United States, because the lower expected prices for prescriptions in Canada mean that drug companies can't make iMoney on Canadian customers. I remember Strattera (atomoxetine, an antidepressant for treating ADHD) being one of them.
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AND, my small business pays less per employee on the extra taxes than on the premiums we might pay in the USA.
Thus a lot of drugs simply are never released in Canada, or released much later in Canada than in the United States, because the lower expected prices for prescriptions in Canada mean that drug companies can't make iMoney on Canadian customers. I remember Strattera (atomoxetine, an antidepressant for treating ADHD) being one of them.
I call bullshit. This is just another lie put out by conservatards and libertards to spread FUD about single payer health care. Give us a list of drugs that have not been released in Canada but have been released in the US because of profitability. Come on. I want a list, and an unequivocal statement from the drug company that the reason that these drugs aren't available is because of Canada's single payer system. Come on you lying SOB, produce some fucking evidence, and no, a broadcast from the Rush Limbau
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produce some fucking evidence
Google drugs not available in canada
anything put out by the Heritage Institute, American Enterprise Institute or Competitive Enterprise Institute doesn't count as evidence
There was a piece in The Washington Post [parapundit.com]. But is the Pacific Research Institute too much like the three blacklisted think tanks you mentioned?
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There's no such thing as uninsured here. AND, my small business pays less per employee on the extra taxes than on the premiums we might pay in the USA.
Canada's unique ratio of oil revenues to population makes the books balance nicely.
But, I don't need my government to work out an arrangement for me - I need them to stop unconstitutionally interfering in the right of private contract and I'll be all set.
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You wake up and find yourself in the hospital with a malignant growth in your brain. Or perhaps your equally healthy daughter had a freak aneurysm, or possibly pathogenic meningitis contracted from the filthy dorm she moved into* . Shit happens. That overweight inner-city welfare queen who miraculously never caught anything worse than a cold now has to underwrite your genetic weakness or stroke of bad luck.
Aw, shit, I've
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Those stories are a great reason to buy insurance. It's a shitty way to explain why "Insurance company, here's $10, now give me a $million 'cuz my house is already on fire" is a good way to manage risk.
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It's a good way for people to manage risk. It's a terrible way for a company trying to make the largest possible profit to manage risk. You know what? Some of my best friends are people. None of them are companies. Fuck companies, if they make a 0.01% profit, it's more than they "deserve". If those individuals that are part of the company want to make more money than any fifty people need for an entire lifetime, they're free to pursue some area of business where my friends don't die so they can have a yacht
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I'm not sure what you mean? No exclusions for pre-existing conditions is exactly the reason for the individual mandate to carry coverage under the new law. It's so you can't just wait until you need expensive treatment to start buying "insurance."
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The interesting thing about Type 2 diabetes (the type you acquire) is that often simply but getting exercise as as great an effect on control as taking insulin injections. of course dietary changes are significant too (less sugar, in all its guises eg bread etc). Getting off the couch (and out of the basement) a lot more can actually do something for you!
Unfortunately the same doesn't help with Type 1 diabetes (the type you are born with) :( Hopefully one day someone will find a fix for that.
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Sorry, but I just want to add in here that your distinctions between Type 2 and Type 1 are incorrect. Both involve some degree of genetic factors. The difference is that Type 2 individuals still make insulin but are RESISTANT to the insulin their body produces. Type 1's no longer make insulin, or make very little of it.
I was not born with Type 1, and at the age of 26 years old was diagnosed with it. There are many schools of thought on why this can happen in adults; one possibility is a virus that trigg
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Don't try to kick me off my high horse of blaming type 2 on people just being fat and not getting off their ass and exercising.
OT: For Type 1 Diabetes: "Edmonton protocol" (Score:2)
FYI:
+ http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/pancreaticislet/ [nih.gov]
Not problem-free, but some successor or spin-off might be, someday, if not now.
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I would hope so. Type 2 diabetes is not treated with insulin.
And no you aren't born with type 1 diabetes either. It's an auto-immune disease.
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the problem isn't that they are doing a $2000 CAT scan, the problem is that a bog-standard scan and three minute examination of the results costs $2000.
I had a very simple chest X-ray. This technology and much of the medical training for common conditions is unchanged for at least 50, and probably 80 years. I was charged $600 which my insurance's awesome discount helpfully lowered to $450. This was an as an outpatient.
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If you think the technology for chest xrays has been the same for 50-80 years you are so wrong.
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Science is all about looking more closely at something than others have done. This often results in seeing something new and thus gaining new understanding. In this case it's about understanding the dynamics of how the body is constantly regulating gene expression, the immune system, and many other things to ward off deterioration and constant threats from the environment. It sounds like a promising avenue of r
Terrible Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot headlines are getting pathetically lame. This kind of twisted deceptive word play is what I expect when I stand in line at the grocery store. Would it have been stooping so low to integrity to post
'IMAX Movie of Body' Allows Stanford Geneticist To See Type 2 Diabetes Progress Like Never Before
?
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- Stanford Geneticist calls off engagement
- Secretly recorded "IMAX" tape released
- "Not on my watch, you don't!"
Really, though I think the headline would be a bit more eye catching since two viral infections were going on if instead it read "Type 2 Diabetes CAUGHT SAMPLING THE BUFFET".
Stop with the IMAX (Score:4)
'IMAX Movie of Body' Allows Stanford Geneticist To See Type 2 Diabetes Progress Like Never Before
Stop with the IMAX. It's a stupid analogy (I know, not yours) and this is a tech site. Perhaps:
"Comprehensive time-series body data analysis sheds new light on Type 2 Diabetes Progression."
Next thing you know, they'll be changing the Big & Tall Section at the department store to the IMAX Clothing section. I wonder if attendance is down at real IMAX theatres since the brand's destruction.
Elsevier boycott (Score:4, Informative)
Cell is published by Elsevier which has been in the news recently because of a boycott. A search provides http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/feb/02/academics-boycott-publisher-elsevier I support the boycott.
The Boycott Works...Elsevier is Hurting (Score:5, Interesting)
I work in the publishing industry for a small publisher.
I was at a convention several weeks ago and spoke with some people who worked for a subsidiary of Elsevier. As an aside, just like in other industries, the publishing industry conglomerates are GIANT. Beyond the science and medical journals that were involved in starting the boycott, Elsevier owns LexisNexis (synonymous with law databases and also a book publisher), Harcourt (fiction), Butterworth, and many more. They have gobbled up literally dozens of formerly independent publishers, and in general data and knowledge companies in all fields.
Anyway, the employees of this particular subsidiary said Elsevier was SEVERELY hurting because of the boycott. I was shocked... I had assumed the boycott would have minimal impact. These particular employees (again, not of Elsevier directly) were glad as they were fully aware of how expensive Elsevier journals are and how ridiculous Elsevier's links in to government are. One of them said basically that Elsevier had spent millions of dollars over the past 15 years to get exclusive rights to public domain research (link [propublica.org]). Once they got it, the situation blew up and Elsevier backed off--waiting no doubt for people to forget.
This also goes to show how many of the individuals in a corporation can believe the "right" thing but that horrible leadership at the top is all that matters.
It's corporations like Elsevier that give ALL companies a bad name. I support the boycott.
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Elsevier sold Harcourt about 5 years ago.
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Did not realize that, thanks for the correction!
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Cell is published by Elsevier which has been in the news recently because of a boycott
You mean, which has been in the news because it is one big fucking scam [techdirt.com]. When you publish with Elsevier, you publish with EVIL.
what? (Score:2, Interesting)
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dumbass...it's not like he got a standard lab corp report of his glucose and cholesterol levels. the group did an entire proteomic, genomic, and metabolomic analysis - reporting how transcriptional levels of his genes and translational levels of his proteins changed over the course of time. it's never been done before, and proves that tracking this amount of information can likely be more informative than just a simple metabolic panel ordered by your physician. it's proving that the information can be pr
One of the next big things? (Score:4, Informative)
Constant monitoring could be the next big thing in medicine.
We currently diagnose based on discrete measurements compared with cutoffs - "averages" and numbers which are rounded to easily-remembered values. For example, Type-II diabetes is indicated when glucose is over 200mg/dl 2 hours after an oral glucose test. ...that seems like an awfully contrived number, simply because it's so easy to remember.
Instead of single point cutoff measurements, maybe we could get better diagnoses if we could see the change in values over time. Perhaps a more accurate diagnosis of diabetes would come from characterizing the slope of several months worth of glucose measurements.
With the rise of cheap microprocessors, I think there's a lot of opportunity for medical monitoring. Something like a wristwatch which records 10 types of measurements every hour. Of course I don't know how this could be done - perhaps spectroscopic measurements of reflected light through the skin, or terahertz wave reflections.
I've often wondered if it's possible to make a USB peripheral that records to a TI Chronos wristwatch [electronicsweekly.com] for later display.
I bet there's lots of interesting features there just waiting to be discovered.
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Absolutely right I think. A first step is the difference between being in hospital, where the first thing any doctor does is look at the chart at the end of the bed for the history of your temperature, BP, etc. and going into a GP surgery and having a single measurement. We already have wearable 24 hour BP and ECG monitors. Looking ahead 5-10 years, I can imagine anyone who is ill (or pregnant or old) wearing a wristwatch and maybe a few stick-on or swallowed or injected wireless sensors that records their
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Continuous blood sugar monitoring would require a supply of reagent to react with glucose and need constant refills. There are no currently known properties of dissolved blood sugar you can measure without a direct chemical reaction.
If you want near continous measurements you can get software and data cables but they never come free or included, and lately they only send data to a website and not your own computer. Gotta love the business approach to healthcare.
I don't think dragging a lab around is practical. (Score:3)
sure they are experimenting with small implantable devices but they are not real labs. The general purpose discrimination power of a modern medical lab is phenomenal, small implanted device, not so much.
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Indeed you are perfectly right.
I work in the space industry, and clearly here we are already using this "detect changes" strategy for everything that we can check regularly, from design to assembly to actual lifetime use.
Of course within the technical field this is easier to perform than on the human body, but definitely you can set warnings not only on levels but on trends, etc. and indeed we now predict not only when a system will fail, but also when its situation will only become "difficult to handle".
A
Not much critics in the article (Score:3)
r/science = science.slashdot (Score:2)
The only difference are comments which I will never get to because the subject is so made up.
"Apple tree's fruit allows Cambridge physicist to discover the law of gravity"
Can it be? (Score:1)
Interestingly I was reading an article a few months back about obese people undergoing gastric bypass. The report said something like 60 people were followed and 20 had diabetes. Strange thing is, as soon as the operations were over, the diabetes disappeared. Instantly. In all the diabetic patients. No one knows why.
Insulin index (Score:1)
Check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_index [wikipedia.org] to know what NOT to eat, if you're diabetic.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, I know this comment will be subsequently down moderated for saying this. So be it.
Not really.
Whenever people on slashdot say their comment will be modded down for being unpopular opinion, it usually ends up being modded up due to the kneejerk reaction of people to not seem biased.
I know I'll be modded down for saying this, but it has to be said.
Enjoy your catch-22.
Re: (Score:2)
Mod parent up.
Re: (Score:2)
I posted this for submission yesterday and it was declined. Its already old news by now.
Who cares if this news is a day old? It's no less relevant.
The tragedy is that your summary couldn't have been worse than this one!
Re: (Score:2)
Crappy quality, but hey, it works [youtube.com]. Reminds me of the GP.
Unrelated, but you may also enjoy this clip [youtube.com]. It's one of my all time favorites.