Can Two Injections of Tuberculosis Vaccine Cure Diabetes? (fortune.com) 124
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:
The causes of Type 1 diabetes can be significantly reversed over several years with just two injections of a common tuberculosis vaccine injected a few weeks apart, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital announced Thursday in a paper published in the journal Nature. Researchers found a substantial reduction in the blood-sugar marker HbA1c that is used to diagnose diabetes.
All subjects with diabetes who received the vaccine had a 10% reduction after three years and 18% after four years, bringing them below the cutoff point for a clinical diagnosis. Those subjects followed for a full eight years retained most of the reduction. Participants who received a placebo or were in a reference group that followed normal diabetic management saw their blood sugar measurement rise by a few percentage points during the same periods followed... A 10% reduction in Hb1Ac reduces the risk of death as a result of diabetes by 21%, and drops by 37% other complications, like blindness and loss of feeling in hands and feet, according to a 2000 study.
All subjects with diabetes who received the vaccine had a 10% reduction after three years and 18% after four years, bringing them below the cutoff point for a clinical diagnosis. Those subjects followed for a full eight years retained most of the reduction. Participants who received a placebo or were in a reference group that followed normal diabetic management saw their blood sugar measurement rise by a few percentage points during the same periods followed... A 10% reduction in Hb1Ac reduces the risk of death as a result of diabetes by 21%, and drops by 37% other complications, like blindness and loss of feeling in hands and feet, according to a 2000 study.
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That's been known for a while.
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Over 100 years actually. Problem is no one has figured out "why" the immune system randomly gets up one day and decides to start destroying the pancreas of a 4 year old.
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The article suggests that it might, but that would involve a separate study (and more grant money :-).
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The article suggests that it might
The article does not say that. There is no plausible mechanism for this to work on type 2.
The sample size in the study (12 people, 9 getting the treatment, and 3 in the control group, and only 3 receiving the treatment were followed for the full duration) is so small, that it is not even clear if it works on type 1.
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"no plausible mechanism for this to work on type 2"
A few years ago the same thing could have been said about type 1.
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A few years ago the same thing could have been said about type 1.
I don't think so. It is widely accepted that early stimulation of the immune system can head off autoimmune disorders, including Type 1 diabetes. The only thing new here is that the stimulation occurred when the patients were older.
But Type 2 is not an autoimmune disorder, so there is no known mechanism for stimulation of the immune system to have any effect, and no evidence that it does.
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I'm not sure if "stimulation" is the right word, being that Type 1 is an autoimmune disease. It almost seems like "suppressing" may be the correct term.
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The sample size in the study (12 people, 9 getting the treatment, and 3 in the control group, and only 3 receiving the treatment were followed for the full duration)
Agreed, this sounds like a case study. I think Andrew Wakefield had a bigger sample size in his anti-vax trials, and we know how that turned out.
I'm Type 1, and I want this to work more than anybody. There's a lot of very smart people trying to find a cure, but at the end of the day it's a very complicated disease with multiple factors that could trigger it.
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According to the poster above this was a very small sample group consisting only of type 1 patients.
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Would this work for type 2?
Nope. Type 1 only.
I am on 2 medications that are low dosages for it
Try cutting back on the soda and fries. Walking or biking to work may also help.
Re: Type 2 help? (Score:1)
His doctor probably wants to sell him the meds. Diabetes 2 is big biz right now for big pharma.
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The patent protections on the old insulin ran out. Lilly Pharmaceuticals can't have you using that *old* insulin that they don't have a patent on.
It's similar to (offtopic warning) the way that Freon formulations are determined to be 'bad for the environment' after DuPont's patent runs out on them. Then a new Freon type * needs to be used and your refrigeration equipment updated or scrapped.
(*that DuPont happens to have a patent on)
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You should avoid carbohydrates too. Cut them out of the diet completely for a good month or two in fact, then re-introduce them in very small measures. Bulk up on animal protein. Always grilled or broiled. Do not fry, boil, or bake. Green vegetables, but not the "leafy" ones; they are useless. Go for broccoli, asparagus and the like - and this is important - you must never microwave the vegetables.
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Got some more quasi-religious nonsense to share?
Re: Type 2 help? (Score:1)
and this is important - you must never microwave the vegetables.
Oooo wah woo.
Do I need to keep my veggies away from my cellphone and wifi router, too?
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No, that's ridiculous. Just make sure your veggies use WPA2. And for God's sake, don't leave the default password in use, on your broccoli, especially.
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Instructions unclear, have just given my bank details to a Nigerian cauliflower mogul who needs to move his assets out the country.
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You rely on health and nutrition information from InfoWars? Seriously?
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InfoWars stole this information from ME.
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"Would this work for type 2?"
Quien Sabe? The study was done on a VERY small number of type 1 diabetics. Frankly, while I think it's worth following up, I'm quite skeptical that the study really shows anything meaningful.
1. The sample size is very small
2. There are surely a large number of probably poorly controlled variables (diet, exercise, other medications, lifestyle changes, etc,etc,etc) Is every aspect of YOUR life that might affect blood glucose levels unchanged over the past five years?
3. "They" h
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>Type 2 responds quite well to intermittent fasting.
20/4 here. My experience matches this. I haven't had any appreciable weight loss, but my doctor is happier with my lab results. (Though candidly I do miss my morning McDonald's sausage biscuit with cheese.)
Part of me wonders if this isn't an artifact of the tests though. Triglyceride testing specifically is extremely sensitive to fasting.
Unfortunately it's not helping my knees. They are suffering accelerated wear due to excessive loading.
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Big Pharma might not allow it (Score:5, Insightful)
It strikes me as though there is a large number of oral medications and injectables all geared toward "managing" diabetes. That's a lot of revenue for somebody. Now to have something that (if it's true) can reduce the need for diabetic medications seems like it would make those drug manufacturers very unhappy.
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It strikes me as though there is a large number of oral medications and injectables all geared toward "managing" diabetes. That's a lot of revenue for somebody. Now to have something that (if it's true) can reduce the need for diabetic medications seems like it would make those drug manufacturers very unhappy.
Therein lies the quandary for the development of humanity-saving drugs... life-long prescriptions produce far more revenue than the next generation of super-antibiotics.
I suspect this might be a flaw in the free market solves all ills school of thought... unless a future that includes a reduction in the human population of the planet is viewed as a net positive.
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Re:Big Pharma might not allow it (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect this might be a flaw in the free market solves all ills school of thought
But this is also a problem that can be solved by the free market. See, a pharma maker with a drug that manages a disease (rather than curing it) may not be inclined to produce a drug that could cure said disease, but another company, one that does not make such a drug (especially a company that is a competitor to the first) does have a strong incentive to produce a cure, as not only would it make them a large amount of money (even if for a short period of time), it would undermine the revenue stream of the competing company, a win for them. Note that this requires the market to actually be free. Collusion between companies can prevent it from happening, because then it ceases to be a free market (note that this does mean a free market requires some government intervention at times).
This is why all the conspiracy theories about researches not actually wanting to find a cure for cancer make no sense. Aside from the fact that researchers themselves have ethical incentives to find a cure (not to mention reputational: there is, after all, a Nobel prize in medicine, and a cure for cancer would be a guaranteed shoe-in), and of course the fact that cures for plenty of other diseases have been (and continue to be) developed (which shows that pharma companies really do still put out cures), the company that discovers a cure for cancer would make all the money in cancer treatment, not just some of it, and for quite a long time, and would completely decimate their competitors. Plus ongoing money, since cancer would still occur and need curing (in fact, they could probably end up making even more money in the long run, since people surving cancer means they're more likely to develop another cancer in the future)
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Yeah, maybe... if it achieves [nih.gov] Lipitor-like success, [investopedia.com] which would require life-long medication.
Assuming constant incidence, survival, and cost, we projected 13.8 and 18.1 million cancer survivors in 2010 and 2020, respectively, with associated costs of cancer care of 124.57 and 157.77 billion 2010 US dollars. This 27% increase in medical costs reflects US population changes only. The largest increases were in the continuing phase of care for prostate cancer (42%) and female breast cancer (32%). Projections of current trends in incidence (declining) and survival (increasing) had small effects on 2020 estimates. However, if costs of care increase annually by 2% in the initial and last year of life phases of care, the total cost in 2020 is projected to be $173 billion, which represents a 39% increase from 2010.
Re:Big Pharma might not allow it (Score:4, Informative)
but another company, one that does not make such a drug (especially a company that is a competitor to the first) does have a strong incentive to produce a cure,
This company would make even more money if they just produced a competing drug to manage the disease rather than curing it.
Here are some examples of the best selling diabetes drugs, from different pharma companies. None of them would benefit from a cure.
https://www.pharmaceutical-tec... [pharmaceut...nology.com]
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Researchers would love to cure all kinds of things. Big pharma, on the other hand, doesn't care even slightly about curing anything. It just wants to see a profit. These goals are sometimes compatible, and sometimes not, but the real danger in this system is consolidation. Capitalism only works in the presence of competition. Consolidation leads to greater barriers to entry into the market, because larger corporations have more money to spend buying legislation.
Re:Big Pharma might not allow it (Score:5, Informative)
I suspect this might be a flaw in the free market solves all ills school of thought...
You might want to pay more attention to that school of thought. A "free market" is a market with full transparency of information, and no barriers to entry for either sellers or buyers.
Medicine has huge barriers to competition, and buyers have almost no information, since doctors don't post prices and often don't even reveal them at the time of delivery. Buyers also have little ability to compare providers for quality. Even review sites like Yelp tell you far more about the rude receptionist than the outcome of the treatments. Furthermore, the "buyer" is insulated from the price, and usually only pays indirectly through their insurance company.
Healthcare in America is about as far as you can get from a free market. Perhaps this is an area where socialism actually makes sense, but we could do it with no net increase in government by de-socializing tasks the free market can do just fine, like package delivery.
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I suspect this might be a flaw in the free market solves all ills school of thought... unless a future that includes a reduction in the human population of the planet is viewed as a net positive.
Or regulatory capture of the FDA is being used to prevent development of less economical treatments. Pick your poison.
There is no free market in medicine.
Europe does't put up with their crap (Score:1)
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Europe does't put up with their crap, like the US does, so a lot of good basic research is getting done over there.
Which is why this study was done at the "Massachusetts General Hospital"?
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That is probably the reason this study is so small. But according to Wikipedia, Type 1 is only 5-10% of all cases, so Big Pharma may just not care, not enough money in it.
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Isn't Type 1 what most kids who are diabetic have?
Won't someone think of the children?!?
seems quite appropriate here.
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They are already complaining about the Hep C cure and how they want to focus more on managing instead of curing.
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Found the moron in the discussion. The study that claimed that was for one specific vaccine, the primary author had an alternate vaccine coming out a few months later he claimed was better and his PhD was by now removed because the study was completely fraudulent. Look it up. No, vaccines do not cause autism.
Title is misleading or the answer is just 'no'. (Score:5, Informative)
To be clear, the intervention is not a cure for type I diabetes mellitus. The authors go out of there way to prove and explain this:
"In this study we observe the long term and stable lowering of blood sugars in humans after BCG vaccinations. In the human, this stable blood sugar control was not driven primarily in these human subjects by pancreas recovery or regeneration. The human pancreas after BCG even at four years after repeat vaccinations did not secrete significant insulin as clinically measured by C-peptide. The mechanism for lowered HbA1c values was not equivalent to the NOD diabetic mouse pancreas regeneration after BCG treatment, despite equally restored and long term improved blood sugar control. The BCG-treated type 1 diabetic subjects at year 4 after glucagon challenge had a negligible to no return of clinically significant C-peptide. The C-peptide values after glucagon were in the range of 2–3 pmol/L of C-peptide (Fig. 1c), but with no known clinical significance. Therefore we concluded that BCG vaccinations did not induce a clinically meaningful return of C-peptide levels in the pancreas by regeneration, as observed in the NOD mouse model of diabetes17,18 Thus pancreas rescue or regeneration could not fully account for the persistent and long term HbA1c lowering in humans receiving BCG."
The study didn't include type 2 so we really can't say how this intervention will work on that group; however, I don't see a reason to think it wouldn't be effective in this group.
This is a really interesting study. I've been heavily involved in the past with diabetes mellitus management. This is a novel approach as far as I know. This may revolutionize the approach to treatment for many with diabetes mellitus.
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I'm somewhat sleep deprived, am I correct in reading that this implies it would lower almost anyone's blood sugar levels slightly for the long term? My understanding is that lowering average blood sugar levels slightly is significantly beneficial to overall health.
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The study is consistent with the possibility that it could improve glycemic control for patients with other types of hyperglycemic disorders (ie. type 2 diabetes mellitus or pre-diabetes) but it certainly hasn't proven this.
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My understanding is that lowering average blood sugar levels slightly is significantly beneficial to overall health.
No, that's not a given. You don't want to push people with an already low blood glucose level down to hypoglycemia levels.
Low blood sugar can be a problem not only for diabetics who take too much medicine, but also people with Addison's disease, non-diabetic alcoholics, and people who do endurance sports or very high levels of exercise.
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My understanding is that lowering average blood sugar levels slightly is significantly beneficial to overall health.
No, that's not a given. You don't want to push people with an already low blood glucose level down to hypoglycemia levels.
Low blood sugar can be a problem not only for diabetics who take too much medicine, but also people with Addison's disease, non-diabetic alcoholics, and people who do endurance sports or very high levels of exercise.
If you read the study, they did address this.
Semi-annual surveys confirmed that during year 03 to year 08 after BCG vaccinations there were no reports of severe hypoglycemia by any patient, even with lowered HbA1Cs near the normal range, and no change in their care as it related to new insulin pumps or continuous glucose monitoring devices. The placebo group of subjects continued to show hypoglycemia events during the same time periods of monitoring.
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If you read the study, they did address this.
No, they didn't. The study and control group were all diabetes patients, where the risk of hypoglycemia is from medication. That's a very different situation than someone who has low blood sugar values for other reasons and where lowering it would bring them below a threshold and cause problems.
My response was to point out that lowering the blood sugar is not always beneficial overall. And indeed, they don't propose that either.
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The answer to this stoopid libtard question, as always, is no. But thanks for asking.
AE911Truth org
Off the cuff, I'd have assumed Betteridge was a better speller.
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Not that this has anything whatsoever to do with diabetes, but they're the ones who begged for $1800 to finance a press release informing the Iranian authorities that apartment building fires are actually caused by explosives [ae911truth.org]. Please look elsewhere for rubes to fleece. Thanks!
As some one pointed out (Score:2)
The article refers to type one diabetes, not the far more common (and epidemic) type two.
Nice, but not as useful
Re:As some one pointed out (Score:5, Informative)
"Our findings show that, at 12 months, almost half of participants achieved remission to a non-diabetic state and off antidiabetic drugs. Remission of type 2 diabetes is a practical target for primary care."
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Let us hope. I've know too many with all of the serious complications.
I'm always leary of "it's a target"
It reminds of the old Microsoft joke... "it's gonna be great"
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There's recent research showing a cure for type 2 diabetes, as well [thelancet.com]. The conclusion:
"Our findings show that, at 12 months, almost half of participants achieved remission to a non-diabetic state and off antidiabetic drugs. Remission of type 2 diabetes is a practical target for primary care."
Since I have type II diabetes, I clicked that with interest to read what miracle might be there. To sum it up...intensive weight loss via exercise.
Well no shit.
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"To sum it up...intensive weight loss via exercise.
Well no shit."
Are you sure you didn't mean
"...minimal weight loss via intensive exercise.
Oh well, no shit time left in the day."
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type-2 is truly a lifestyle choice.
Speak for yourself.
I'm a disabled veteran. I don't eat poorly, but I can't exercise very well (or hardly walk) because of the injuries that caused my medical retirement. Type-2 diabetes is also caused by corticosteroids - right now I'm in the middle of working to get my Type-2 diabetes connected as a secondary condition to one of my service connected disabilities, because I didn't have Type 2 diabetes before having to get massive steroid injections and prednisone treatments.
There *are* a lot of fat fucks
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Most cases of type 2 can be prevented and treated with a better (no sugar/no grains) diet.
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Yeah, let me know how successful you are with that. It's not JUST sugar/grains... Expand it to the more general and appropriate "carbohydrates" and then tell me what has carbs and how to scrupulously avoid them.
I the cheese you eat isn't extremely sharp, the residual lactose is a carbohydrate. Legumes, some "good" carbs (not digestable) still some "bad" ones too.
Did you know protein can metabolize into glucose? Carbs.
I live this.
It's not fun but worth the effort.
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If you're not dead, you have a blood sugar level of some sort.
My point is, you should NOT be trying to eliminate sugars or things that will turn into sugars from your diet. You need them. Just figure out what you can eat such that your blood sugar stays at a level your nerves aren't dying of
What About Type 2? (Score:2)
Number of problems with this study (Score:5, Informative)
I'll try and identify a few of them.
First up: define what a Type 1 diabetic is.
We had this come up some weeks back, when some Scandinavian doctors came up with the conclusion that the several thousand diabetics they studied did not fall neatly into 2 groups ie. Type 1 & 2. Instead they identified some half a dozen groups.
I angrily posted about this at the time because this was known over 20 years ago. What was worse is that I (a diabetic who needs insulin) wasn't covered in their groupings and neither was somebody with gestational diabetes or ....etc.
There's also the problem of what an American doctor diagnoses as a "Type 1" might be somewhat different to what a British or Japanese or Ugandan doctor does. It may even subtly vary among the doctors in just one hospital.
Treatment regimens will vary also: human or analog insulin? Which analog? Short acting, long acting, mix? Pump, pen, syringe? Which pump running what software?
The authors of this paper obviously start with the assumption that all the "Type 1 diabetics" they studied were as a result of this mysterious auto-immune disease, a disease whose pathology or very existence is entirely unclear.
They say in the paper that their cohort had all been diagnosed as "Type 1" as if it's a choice between black or white. It's not, because that term is undefined and in clinical practice covers a significant spectrum of people.
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It does, apparently, seem to be, as you describe it. It's unclear to me why the Type 1/2 diagnosis isn't based on blood insulin levels. Little or no insulin = Type 1. Lots of insulin but elevated blood glucose (A1C) = type 2.
But it's not. And if it were, diagnosis would still be difficult once supplemental insulin was used.
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Unfortunately, the whole business of diabetes, it's diagnosis and it's management is a complete shambles. That wouldn't be so bad if it was an uncommon disease.
In the old days, type 1 & 2 were essentially known as 'juvenile onset' and 'age onset' respectively and you were chucked in to one or the other category.
The great & the good decided that those 2 categories didn't quite correlate with the true picture and in their wisdom they decided "Type 1 & 2" was so much better. Of course, it wasn
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"Unfortunately, the whole business of diabetes, it's diagnosis and it's management is a complete shambles. That wouldn't be so bad if it was an uncommon disease."
Diagnosis? I'll give them a B+. A1C seems useful and is repeatable if you don't demand more than +- 0.5% accuracy. I'm less wild about blood glucose measurement. The measurement seems repeatable. But my experience is that different meters give results that are more different than they reasonably ought to be. And even with just one meter, my r
Bayes' Theorum (Score:1)
18 year old study? (Score:1)
according to a 2000 study.
Does this mean this study was done in 2000?
Or, is the data from this study compared to a different study in 2000?
Herbs cured my hiv (Score:1)
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Or maybe scientists and researchers should have some ethics to make sure their studies are valid and repeatable before pushing claims?
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How's that working for the ex-Google employees who refused to work on gubmint programs?
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Or maybe scientists and researchers should have some ethics to make sure their studies are valid and repeatable before pushing claims?
Sure
Certainly though, a societal trend seems to have developed that indicate getting your possibly inaccurate scoop out there trumps carefully researching your data.
Re:Too bad the Republicans will never let us have (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe scientists and researchers should have some ethics to make sure their studies are valid and repeatable before pushing claims?
Scientists don't publish claims, they publish results. The media publishes claims.
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They do and did. The real work is being done by Dr. Faustmann's lab at Mass. General Hospital, and I've been keeping an eye on it. It also requires tight blood sugar control for the month of the treatment, which is why at first other laboratories could not reproduce the results in lab animals. Tight blood sugar control for Type 1 diabetics requires many blood glucose tests and careful diet, schedule, etc. And it costs a lot more in personnel to do the animal care and the blood glucose test strips are $1/eac
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Seems like it's possible to find at clinics which specialize in travel vaccines. (granted the research done was a couple of googles.)
Re: Too bad the Republicans will never let us have (Score:1)
It's probably under patent any longer.
Big Pharma is hard at work on new, patentable therapies for diabetes.
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When I was a kid in the UK in the '60s I was vaccinated with BCG. TB was still common enough then, that even though I lived in a 'well-to-do' town, you'd see these lar
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When I was a toddler in the 1960s, my granny died of TB. Unsurprisingly, when I got my TB test in the 1970s, I was positive - I'd been exposed to the bacterium enough that my immune system had a response to a challenge dose. So I didn't get BCG'd, because I was already immune. Since then I've worked in TB clinics (test on joining, test on leaving) and I've had three call backs to be re-tested because someone at my workspace has come back from
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"BCG is pretty much useless for TB, but they still give it out to everyone in the philippines."
So Type 1 diabetes is pretty much unknown in the Philippines?
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Type 1 diabetes is inherited, it is not from germ phobia.
Type 1 diabetes, like many other autoimmune disorders, is correlated with excessive cleanliness [nih.gov].
Both Type 1 and Type 2 have a genetic component, but it is actually stronger for type 2. The heritability for type 1 is about 3% if you mother has it, and about 5% if your father has it. For some Native American tribes, such as the Pima people [wikipedia.org], the type 2 rate is nearly 40%, nearly all of which is heritable because their genetic heritage isn't adapted to a modern diet.
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Native tribes and gypsies are not known for excessive cleanliness. So the germophobia link is likely pure BS.
The Native Americans get Type 2. The lack of germs causes Type 1.
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The native tribes part was for diabetes type 2 which is likely NOT an autoimmune disorder. The idea is that many autoimmune disorders happen when parts of the immune systems that were evolved to target once common germs and parasites never encounter their true target and then target similar human proteins.
"Germ phobia" or "excessive cleanliness" is not such a good description, e.g:: even without any focus on cleanliness, nearly everyone in developed countries will only drink clean water free of worms and si
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Alright, you're trying to make this a dig about Republicans all being fat, and it's working, but you don't have to go that far for the punch line here. The truth is that this is about religious fanaticism more than party lines. The (+80% Christian) Republicans think type 1 diabetes is punishment from God, because you're born with it. That is why they care less about it than type 2.
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If you think that an opioid antagonist is going to have an effect on a dopamine agonist, maybe you should go retake some of your med school classes?
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naltrexone also blocks certain endorphines
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This is exactly why we still don't have any way to prevent smallpox or polio—there's entirely too much profit in waiting to treat those diseases after they occur!