New Type 1 Diabetes Treatment And Prevention Options On The Horizon

New Type 1 Diabetes Treatment and Prevention Options on the Horizon

There’s new hope on the horizon for those with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Biopharmaceutical company TetraGenetics is working on an innovative drug therapy that can stop or prevent the body’s immune system from attacking its own pancreas.
How T1D Develops
Most people who develop T1D do so as a result of a particular virus that triggers an exaggerated autoimmune response.
In the pancreas, the cells that produce insulin are called beta cells. In people that have a particular type of gene associated with T1D, the beta cells have a quality (an antigen) that closely resembles the antigens found in the virus.
When you are exposed to the virus, your immune system activates its T cells to start combating the infection by creating antibodies. However, these antibodies can’t distinguish between the beta cells and the virus cells. They look too similar, so the antibodies destroy them all in an attempt to protect against the viral infection.
Unfortunately, by killing off your beta cells, your immune system has also eliminated your body’s ability to produce insulin. You are now diabetic.
Both Genes and Virus Necessary for T1D to Develop
There are four viruses that can cause the autoimmune cascade that results in T1D: German measles, mumps, rotavirus, and the B4 strain of the coxsackie B virus. These viruses all possess antigens that are similar to the antigens in the beta cells of the pancreas.
It’s important to note that not everyone who is exposed to these viruses will develop T1D. You have to already possess the genetic makeup associated with T1D.
If you do carry the T1D genes b Continue reading

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Diabetes treatment: THIS new drug could be biggest development since discovery of insulin

Researchers have discovered that a drug commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes patients could also benefit those with type 1 diabetes.
A study by the University of Buffalo has revealed that type 1 patients given dapagliflozin - a medication traditionally given to type 2 sufferers - experienced a significant decline in their blood sugar levels.
Until now, there hadn’t been a significant development in treatment for type 1 diabetes since the discovery of insulin in the 1920s.
Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes sufferers have higher than normal blood sugar levels.
When the drug was taken in addition to insulin - needed by type 1 diabetics every day to survive - there was an improvement in blood glucose levels.
However, the former is where the body’s immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells, while the latter is caused when the body doesn't produce enough insulin, or the body's cells don't react to insulin.
In the study, researchers looked at 833 participants aged between 18 and 75 who had poorly controlled blood sugars for 24 weeks.
It was the first time dapagliflozin had been tested for effectiveness and safety in treating type 1 globally - the study took place in 17 countries.
When the drug was taken in addition to insulin - needed by type 1 diabetics every day to survive - there was an improvement in blood glucose levels.
Fri, August 19, 2016
Diabetes is a common life-long health condition. There are 3.5 million people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK and an estimated 500,000 who are living undiagnosed with the condition.
"Our paper provides the initial s Continue reading

What Your Parents Ate Before You Were Born Might Affect Your Risk of Obesity And Diabetes

It's well-known that the food your parents eat and the kind of kitchen they run when you're growing up can have a major impact on how your own dietary health pans out, but what about their eating habits before you were even born?
New research in mice has found that the food parents eat before their offspring come into the world can also end up affecting the next generation's health. In the study, researchers found that mice fed a high-fat diet rendered their offspring more susceptible to developing obesity and diabetes – even when the babies were carried by and born to healthy surrogate mothers, ruling out the impact of any subsequent behaviour on the part of the biological parents during pregnancy and thereafter.
The study provides the latest evidence of epigenetics – the remarkable and somewhat counterintuitive science that explains how we can inherit some traits via external or environmental factors in addition to the genetic information encoded in our DNA.
"From the perspective of basic research, this study is so important because it proves for the first time that an acquired metabolic disorder can be passed on epigenetically to the offspring via oocytes and sperm," said researcher Johannes Beckers from the German Research Centre for Environmental Health.
To isolate whether parental diets in themselves could affect offspring health outside of a behavioural context, the researchers fed groups of genetically identical mice one of three diets: high fat, low fat, or standard lab chow. After six weeks, the mice on high-fat food had become obese and showed an impaired tol Continue reading

What Is Type 1 Diabetes?

In this section, we will share an easy-to-understand overview of type 1 diabetes, including what it is, diagnosis, treatment and links for learning more.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. For unknown reasons, the immune system attacks the insulin producing cells in the pancreas called beta cells and destroys them. You can think of insulin as the key that unlocks your cells and enables them to access sugar. Without access to sugar, it builds up in your blood. You feel tired, your body turns to fat for energy and you lose weight, and you urinate frequently as your body tries to flush out all that excess sugar.
Every human (well, all mammals, actually) need insulin to live. Everyone with diabetes needs to take some form in insulin in order to survive. Unfortunately, at this time, type 1 diabetes can’t be prevented or cured.
You may have heard type 1 diabetes called juvenile diabetes. About half of people with type 1 diabetes are diagnosed in childhood, though the truth is that type 1 diabetes can develop at any age. This terminology has long since been abandoned. (See: How Many People Have Diabetes?)
If left untreated, type 1 diabetes will eventually be fatal.
How Do You Treat Type 1 Diabetes?
Everyone with type 1 diabetes needs to take insulin to live. Insulin can come from insulin injections, insulin pump or inhaling insulin. Experimental treatments are using implanted insulin-producing cells.
The primary challenge of type 1 diabetes is to take enough insulin to lower the high blood sugars but not so much that you have severe low blood sugars. This typically requir Continue reading

Understanding the Honeymoon Phase in Type 1 Diabetes

WRITTEN BY: Forester McClatchey
A terrible illness struck me a few months after my diagnosis. The story is fairly complicated, but here are the essential elements: I participated in a Phase II Clinical Trial for a drug that was supposed to make diabetic life easier; the drug made me sick; a flurry of illnesses followed; I ended up with mono.
During those bed-ridden days, my fever climbed to 105 degrees Fahrenheit and my grip on reality became weak. I don’t think I actually hallucinated, but it makes a better story to say that I did. So, I hallucinated. The most interesting part of the experience, however, was the fact that my blood sugars stayed almost-perfect the whole time.
This fact contradicted the diabetic wisdom that states that sickness and fever will drive one’s blood sugars into the stratosphere. I never bolused for what little food I could manage, and still my levels hovered around 140. Hardly any insulin entered my body. Was I hallucinating? No: I was in the Honeymoon Phase.
The Honeymoon Phase, or “Honeymoon Period,” which can last for as long as a year, occurs when the body makes a partial recovery from its autoimmune attack. If you want to approach a thorough comprehension of T1D, or if you know anyone who was diagnosed recently, it’s important to understand what’s going on here.
But in order to understand the Honeymoon Phase, we must take a look at T1D’s pathogenesis, or, how the disease develops. Side note: I will give one whole dollar to anyone who can use “pathogenesis” in a Scrabble game.
As you probably know, Type I diabetes strikes whe Continue reading