Stem Cell Therapy Frees Woman From Diabetes (washingtonpost.com) 81
Amanda Smith, a 35-year-old nurse from London with Type 1 diabetes, "is at the forefront of a medical experiment that seeks to treat the root cause of diabetes by replacing the cells the disease destroys," reports Carolyn Y. Johnson for the Washington Post. "On Valentine's Day 2023, doctors transplanted replacement islet cells, grown in a lab from embryonic stem cells, into a blood vessel that feeds Smith's liver. By August, she no longer needed insulin. Her new cells were churning it out." From the report: Smith is one of a dozen patients who have received a full dose of islet cells generated in a laboratory from stem cells. Eleven of the patients in the clinical trial drastically reduced taking insulin or stopped altogether, according to data presented at an American Diabetes Association meeting in June. Despite the promise, the therapy developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals remains in early stages, and many experts consider it a major step forward, not the finish line.
No one knows how long these cells will keep churning out insulin or whether the therapy is safe long-term until it is tested and followed up in more patients, who must take immune-suppressing drugs to prevent their body from rejecting the foreign cells. One patient died of an infection caused by a complication of sinus surgery, highlighting the risk of immunosuppressive medications, which were among the factors contributing to the patient's death. [...]
Smith credits her insulin pump with keeping her alive but was elated to banish it to the back of a kitchen cabinet. She no longer has to plan her life around her illness. "I pray this gets to everyone," Smith said. "My life has changed."
No one knows how long these cells will keep churning out insulin or whether the therapy is safe long-term until it is tested and followed up in more patients, who must take immune-suppressing drugs to prevent their body from rejecting the foreign cells. One patient died of an infection caused by a complication of sinus surgery, highlighting the risk of immunosuppressive medications, which were among the factors contributing to the patient's death. [...]
Smith credits her insulin pump with keeping her alive but was elated to banish it to the back of a kitchen cabinet. She no longer has to plan her life around her illness. "I pray this gets to everyone," Smith said. "My life has changed."
The ghost of (Score:1)
Wilford Brimley is stirring. DIAAAA....BEAT.....US!
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I'm sure you're aware, but Wilford Brimley's "diabeetus" refers to Type 2, a metabolic disorder. This article (and this therapy) is specific to Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disorder. (Technically this type of therapy might also be helpful for some Type 2 cases, but it's initially focused on type 1.)
Re:The ghost of (Score:5, Insightful)
"Technically the only “therapy” you need is someone in your life to tell you to stop eating shit food and start exercising regularly."
Ah yes, the teenager's solution to weight management, dreamt up by people who've never had a weight problem. The "I'm better than you" answer.
If only there was a definition of "shit food" that made this answer work, or that it were possible for all the Type 2 sufferers that have never even been overweight.
"Truth hurts, but lies kill."
Maybe you'll live long enough to know what the truth and the lies are, you haven't got it yet.
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FWIW, eliminating starches and sugars from your diet generally works. Unfortunately, by the time Diabetes shows up there is no recovery, but it usually CAN be managed by strict dietary control. At least for a few decades. But it has to be REALLY strict, and watch your kidney function.
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FWIW, eliminating starches and sugars from your diet generally works. Unfortunately, by the time Diabetes shows up there is no recovery, but it usually CAN be managed by strict dietary control. At least for a few decades. But it has to be REALLY strict, and watch your kidney function.
I personally know two people, both older, both who had weight problems, who lost weight to "normal" levels and balanced out their diets, and now have ceased taking insulin most of the time. Type 2 brought on by diet in older adults can in many cases be put into remission [nih.gov] by weight control.
However, there seems to be a class of people whose bodies kind of float somewhere between Type 1 and 2: they got it later in life, were initially diagnosed as Type 2, but are in otherwise good health and at a normal weig
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"Technically the only “therapy” you need is someone in your life to tell you to stop eating shit food and start exercising regularly."
Ah yes, the teenager's solution to weight management, dreamt up by people who've never had a weight problem. The "I'm better than you" answer.
If only there was a definition of "shit food" that made this answer work, or that it were possible for all the Type 2 sufferers that have never even been overweight.
"Truth hurts, but lies kill."
Maybe you'll live long enough to know what the truth and the lies are, you haven't got it yet.
Actual T2 diabetic here. Type 2 diabetes is entirely a metabolic condition, and can be treated with diet and exercise effectively, I am living proof of that. Last fall my A1c was 13.5 and I was 300 pounds. I started eating Keto and walking more, using the stairs more, eating M-W-F and not eating on Tuesday or Thursday. I also started eating only 2 meals a day, lunch and dinner, and eat nothing else at any other time when I can help it. I make best efforts to stick to this schedule and diet but don't get my
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First, anecdote is not the singular of data. Second, what you described is an eating disorder. I know you think I'm just trolling you but what you described of your diet hits all the major bulletpoints for anorexia.
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Some of the treatments for T2 diabetes (read: Ozempic, Mounjaro) essentially deprive you of any pleasure in eating, so you do end up with what amounts to an induced eating disorder. Also other effects, like decreased sex drive and such. Depression might be a better word for what happens.
That said, you're not going to have T2 and 'eat like a normal person', without pharmacological help. It'll get worse with time and you'll have to modify your diet again and again until you end up having a very constrained
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I'd like to explain the fact that I don't care what I eat - total slop, protein bars, veggies - for the most part, in any other way. It really doesn't make much difference. It's a chore.
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That feeling isn't a side effect of the drug. That feeling is a common description of the experience of having an eating disorder.
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Some of the treatments for T2 diabetes (read: Ozempic, Mounjaro) essentially deprive you of any pleasure in eating
That's not true. I've been on GLP-1 agonists for 4 years, starting with liraglutide. They don't deprive you of food pleasure, they just make food cravings much weaker, and also accelerate the feeling of satiety.
It takes some adjustment because you can't just eat 3 jumbo shakes anymore and then polish them off by eating 2 double cheeseburgers. You'll start feeling uncomfortably full after the first milkshake. So you need to adjust your food preferences, and it takes time. E.g. you can't start a meal by eat
Willpower (Score:1)
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Very few people have the willpower to actually pull this off, well done sir. I caught myself a little later than you but I wasn't as bad either and this solution does work. I think food addictions are the worst to manage, of all the other things you can get addicted to it's one you can't just stop doing. Most T2 or pre T2 are going to look at this and say no way am I doing that, give me all the pills and drugs you have.
Congratulations to you as well sir!
Yes, many people are sitting around holding out hope for a magical pill that will make the problem go away, because managing the problem is hard to get going. Once I started feeling better and becoming accustomed to the change in foods I actually found it pretty easy and as long as I rotate my foods around I don't get bored eating similar stuff for too long. I have a job that is unfortunately more sedentary than I like, but I try to spend a lot of time outdoors, and althou
Reminds me of alcoholism (Score:2)
People think that the drunks should just quit drinking. One does, and points the finger at the rest for failing to do what he/she did. You'll hear this in some venues, though 12-step recovery discourages this viewpoint. But the majority of drunks continue being unhealthy until something bad happens to them, causing them to question their life path. Regardless of the person pointing at them and telling them they are living life wrong.
Turns out that 'control' is the issue that both alcoholics, codependent
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People think that the drunks should just quit drinking. One does, and points the finger at the rest for failing to do what he/she did. You'll hear this in some venues, though 12-step recovery discourages this viewpoint. But the majority of drunks continue being unhealthy until something bad happens to them, causing them to question their life path. Regardless of the person pointing at them and telling them they are living life wrong.
Turns out that 'control' is the issue that both alcoholics, codependents and for that matter people with eating disorders have. Telling people they are living life wrong and they need to follow your example is a symptom of said control. It's also the reason why organizations like Overeaters Anonymous exist. It's just another addiction and the gp poster's white-knuckling solution to his addiction is wonderful for him, but it seems that he probably should look more closely at his reaction to this and find some help for the psychological issues.
Try to have some compassion for others, grandparent, and stop telling them how to live. They'll either figure it out or not, and don't need your help.
I'm not telling anyone how they have to live, everyone is free to do whatever they wish. Addictions can be broken, they are habits, and habits can be changed.
There are classes of addictions that are real, genuine, chemical dependency where there will be withdrawals and physical responses to being deprived of whatever the offending substance is. Even with those, medical protocols exist to break those addictions with the help of other drugs or sometimes, yeah, just white-knuckling it.
Eating too much, being fa
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You've set the goalposts on "treated effectively" to something that you're happy with, and that's not unreasonable. But 6.0 is still higher than normal, and the remaining risk from that deviation has not been well quantified. But it's is also widely believed to be non-zero.
Say, the one piece of information missing from your anecdotal conclusion is how much willpower it took to get where you are- after all, I assume you'd not demand someone take more "control of their own life and make the changes necessary" than you did? Have you any similar regard for someone that might produce less glucagon-like peptide 1 or be less sensitive to it?
TLDR: former fat guy loses weight and joins the fat-shaming bandwagon. Nice.
"How much willpower" is easy to quantify, it was very difficult the first few weeks, then got much easier. As the effects of having chronically high blood glucose burned off I had more energy, slept easier, and just generally felt better. Also because the keto-type diets allow a pretty wide range of foods (most meats, eggs, fats like butter and cheese, yogurt, many vegetables, some nuts, some fruits, etc) it keeps from getting too boring and I can rotate stuff I eat.
A funny side effect is that I don't want
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TLDR: former fat guy loses weight and joins the fat-shaming bandwagon. Nice.
Forgot to address this one. A healthy society is maintained through social pressures on people to conform to norms. One of those norms is to not be fat. We currently live in a period of post-industrial civilization where the populations in developed nations are facing a real problem in that there is too many food choices and too much to eat. Just imagine that, in only a couple lifetimes we can go from starvation being a major problem to obesity being the epidemic.
When I was fatter I felt the pressure to los
Big Pants Don't Make People Fat (Score:2)
You've got it backwards. Your solution to fat people is banning large pants because you've confused correlation with causation.
One of the earliest symptoms of sub-clinical type-2 diabetes is insulin resistance. Do you know what one of the primary symptoms of insulin resistance is? Weight gain. People don't gain weight and get diabetes. People get diabetes and then gain weight. If you only look at diabetic people, you might be led to think high BMIs are a sign of poor health. If you look at the population a
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Using one's own stem cells? (Score:5, Interesting)
My 6yo daughter has T1D, and we banked her cord blood when she was born. If her own stem cells could be used to generate these insulin-producing cells, it would avoid the need for broad-spectrum immunosuppressive drugs. (Although the autoimmune attack itself would also need to be selectively suppressed to prevent the T1D recurring.) Holding out hope that these therapies start to become available sooner than later!
Re:Using one's own stem cells? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Using one's own stem cells? (Score:5, Informative)
The treatment in the article is derived from embryonic stem cells taken from a donor. So they trade needing an insulin pump and constant monitoring for low blood sugar for taking immunosuppressants and risking complications related to a less active immune system.
But this does get you closer to the day when they can re-engineer your own stem cells to fix the problem...
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As someone with Crohn's disease, who is on immunosuppressants and has to deal with a craptacular immune system, I can say this is likely a far less terrible fate than type 1 diabetes. There are some neat new drug therapies where using azathioprine and allopurinol together, in much lower doses, can tank the immune system without eventual liver damage.
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I wish I had a dollar for every time someone told me an autoimmune disease could be cured with diet change.
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I wonder why the article mentions immunosuppressants, in case they are the stemcells created from skin, they are body native.
From the article
Instead of transplanting the whole organ, scientists wondered, what if they could use islets harvested from organ donors?
Appears to be cells from another person.
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I think there are multilpe things to consider. If this is a genetic defect, ones own stemcells must be first repaired, that may be a crispr-cas9 kind of technique. And the stemcells must be put in an envionment where they start to produce Islets of Langerhans. I wonder why the article mentions immunosuppressants, in case they are the stemcells created from skin, they are body native.
Because Type 1 (Juvenile) diabetes is in the autoimmune family of diseases. The pancreas is attacked by your own body because, for reasons no one yet understands, when some kids are in a given age range, suddenly their immune systems see the pancreas as an enemy.
Before I even mention this to my own son with T1, I want to see how these patients deal with the autoimmune issues. Is it worth it to get the procedure if you're getting sick all the time because of immunity issues?
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If this is a genetic defect, ones own stemcells must be first repaired, that may be a crispr-cas9 kind of technique.
The "genetic defect" (to the extent T1D has a genetic predisposition) relates to the immune system, not the beta cells themselves. So no "repair" would be needed to create workable beta cells this way.
FWIW, the genetic susceptibility to T1D is present in about 1/4 of the population, but only 1-2% of those will ever develop the disease, based on unknown (likely environmental or probabilistic) factors.
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Re:Using one's own stem cells? (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you know before she was born that she had diabetes? If not, how did you think to save the cord blood? Granted, I had one kid, and that was nearly 40 years ago before saving cord blood was even considered, I'd imagine. Even so, we had no idea that there might even be a reason to do so.
There is no T1D in our family histories; in fact, ironically, 23andMe had identified both of us (mother and father) as having substantially below-average risk for T1D. We banked the cord blood (in 2018) mostly on a "why not?" basis, thinking that it might possibly turn out useful for other family members in the future, or perhaps something we could donate for science or for someone else's use. We never expected that our daughter herself might benefit from it! And she can't (yet), but maybe one of these days.
I'll Pass (Score:5, Interesting)
As a T1D patient of over 50 years, I'm happy to see these various attempts at cures. But until they can do it without the need for immuno-suppressants, count me out. As much as I hate this disease, I've managed it incredibly well with my pump, exercise, and eating well. I really don't look forward to a day when my diabetes are gone, but it's replaced by the fear that I could die from a silly infection that I'd otherwise fight off.
I'll pass.
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In a way it would be like getting AIDS. I could not imagine volunteering for that. Imagine a sick joke were curing one disease meant contracting AIDS as the fix.
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IIUC (I can't remember the disease) there *IS* a disease for which that is true...at least there's a large statistical correlation.
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That's what it will come down to. I've been on immunosuppressants (azathioprine) for 15 years now. While at times it can suck a big one (infections, flu, etc) it's not that terrible. QOL will always be a concern with it, though.
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While at times it can suck a big one (infections, flu, etc) it's not that terrible. QOL will always be a concern with it, though.
I'm never sick. Well, almost never. I actually appreciate my immune system even if it's the cause of my T1D. Personally I'd rather not trade the devil I know for one I don't. The researchers are still hard at work trying to figure out ways to implant beta cells that can't or won't trigger the auto-immune system. I'd consider that the cure, and the only cure worthwhile. Until then: insulin pump, finger pricking, eating well, etc.
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Yeah. Sounds like you have things under control there.
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Not all immune suppressants are the same.
It doesn't matter whether they're "all the same" or not. As I said in a follow-up, it's trading the devil I know for one I don't. Just because the suppressant you're taking (for instance) isn't "bad" for you doesn't mean it wouldn't destroy someone else. Everyone's immune system is different.
The crux of T1D is that it's an immune system problem: the immune system, for some genetically fucked-up reason, sees the beta cells as intruders and destroys them. That problem doesn't go away once the beta cells a
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"Uh, where do you get Nazi rhetoric from what I said? "
From your post, same place I got it from. I read what you said, nazi rhetoric and all.
"I'm talking pure genetic multi generational facts. Real science."
Just like Mengele. Pure science, nazi science.
"...then their defects will be passed down and spread among the general populace..."
Which is why the Jews need to be exterminated and the Aryan race cleansed.
"What's this have to do with me personally? I have no genetic illnesses that would prevent breeding
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I'll guarantee that you have SOME genetic illness. Everybody does, though they're not the same one. At a bare minimum I'll bet you have the one that broke vitamin C synthesis.
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"Again, careful with the rhetoric. It has a "master race" feel to it, though I'm certain you didn't actually mean it that way."
No, he really meant it that way. Perhaps you haven't had the misfortune to read enough of his posts to realize that's exactly what he's saying.
"...it's not their fault they ended up with this disease. Right?"
He doesn't care whose fault someone else's problem is. He only cares what he's getting out of it.
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No, he really meant it that way. Perhaps you haven't had the misfortune to read enough of his posts to realize that's exactly what he's saying.
I haven't had that misfortune, to be fair to myself. I was also trying to avoid Godwin, but it appears I've failed.
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Whether it's "their fault" or not depends on what you classify as "them". If you include the associated genetic code, then it likely *is* their fault. (And note, it may or may not be a gene-line fault. Lots of mutations occur in each individual, and most of them never make it into the cells of the inherited gene-line.)
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Whether it's "their fault" or not depends on what you classify as "them". If you include the associated genetic code, then it likely *is* their fault. (And note, it may or may not be a gene-line fault. Lots of mutations occur in each individual, and most of them never make it into the cells of the inherited gene-line.)
This is an asinine statement, and you knew exactly what I meant when I said it wasn't their fault. The possessive pronoun, in this case, is referring to the baby that is born with the genetic mutation that causes the immune system to kill the betas. It's not that baby's fault.
The clue phone is ringing. It's for you.
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"...I've been taking one for many years with no side effects, extra infections, etc..."
"My concern about these sort of things is more long term for the human race. If we don't allow some degree of Darwin, then eventually..."
Put your money where your mouth is, stop taking your medications. Or is your concern that others are not sacrificing enough for the good of you?
"At a personal level these are all great interventions but we are actually harming ourselves by defeating Darwin."
So "personal level" for you a
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This is eugenics. (With all the baggage that entails.) There are very few cases where such an approach could even theoretically do actual good, and they all depend on a degree of scientific knowledge and technology (and global availability) that we don't have yet.
Imagine we had a magical free CRISPR shot that could repair a "broken" genetic base pair. Only a tiny fraction of diseases, those caused by a single well-defined gene (e.g. Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis) would be fixable this way. Most "genetic" disea
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I am also T1D. I agree. Trading Insulin for Pills is a non-cure.
Loss of cells is not the root cause (Score:2)
Whatever triggers the immune cells to attack is the root cause. And we still donâ(TM)t know, nor are we looking.
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You are wrong when you say "nor are we looking". You may not feel we're looking in the right place, but lots of people are looking.
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Didn't China do this already? (Score:2)
It was probably something else and I can't be arsed to check.
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The other one was a cure for type 2.
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FREEDUMB!
Re:This is not the right solution (Score:5, Informative)
This is about Type 1 diabetes where your own body revolts. It has zero to do with what you eat. People are literally, in the truest sense of the word, born with it.
However, this is not a "cure" for diabetes.
In this case it is. It's a cure for Type 1 (or as close as possible to a cure for this type of diabetes).
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An AC that doesn't know the difference between Type 1 and Type 2, nor the reasons for Type 2, has no basis for understanding what is the "more expensive hamster wheel", he will only know it when it affects him. Then his opinion will change.
"However, this is not a "cure" for diabetes."
Well, yes it is. Your problem is that you do not understand what "cure" and "diabetes" mean.
"You must fix these issues before you can be truly successful in treating it. As long as we indemnify rather than penalize these poor
Am I a bit off here? (Score:2)
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It sounds like bad wording. Type 1, genetic/autoimmune diabetes, is the destruction of the islet cells in the pancreas that produce insulin.
They really need to develop a method using the patient's own cells.
"No one knows how long these cells will keep churning out insulin or whether the therapy is safe long-term until it is tested and followed up in more patients, who must take immune-suppressing drugs to prevent their body from rejecting the foreign cells."
Type 1 (Score:2)
This is type 1, an important point for anyone mixing it up with type 2. That is insulin resistance and low insulin mainly driven by obesity.
I'm not sure this is new? (Score:2)
I recall that they experimented with implanting new islets into Type 1 Diabetics, way back in the late 1990s. They produced their own insulin for a while, but those islets were attacked by the immune system, and they had to return to insulin therapy after a few months. Replacing the cells doesn't address the core problem, which is the immune system attacking them. It seems like just suppressing the immune system should be good enough to start producing insulin again, but then you've just traded insulin inje
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There has been significant research into finding ways to get the beta cells to regenerate themselves (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]), as well as "inverse vaccines" (e.g. Anokion: https://anokion.com/pipeline/ [anokion.com]) to selectively "untrain" the immune system to attack the pancreas. Also research into ways to physically shield transplanted beta cells from both immune rejection and autoimmune attack. (e.g. Vertex Pharmaceuticals: https://www.vrtx.com/our-scien... [vrtx.com])
Meanwhile, there are selective, relatively
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as well as "inverse vaccines" (e.g. Anokion: https://anokion.com/pipeline/ [anokion.com]) to selectively "untrain" the immune system to attack the pancreas.
This is the strategy that I feel like is the most promising. Maybe implanting cloned islets will be necessary in the process, but this technique is attempting to fix the problem at its source. I'm eager to see how it progresses.