Vaccine Will Cure Diabetes: Scientists Close To Finding New Wonder Drug

Vaccine will cure diabetes: Scientists close to finding new wonder drug

Launching the project today, they believe the research will result in an effective vaccine to combat Type 1 diabetes.
Dr Alasdair Rankin, Diabetes UK’s director of research, said: “This research is hugely exciting because it has the potential to transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of people living with Type 1 diabetes, as well as leading us towards a longed-for cure.”
The vaccine would work in harmony with other treatments that reduce damage to insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
In the first of four new studies, Professor Mark Peakman at King’s College London will lead the UK trial of a prototype vaccine for children and teenagers living with or at high risk of Type 1 diabetes.
At the same time Professor Colin Dayan at Cardiff University will develop a UK-wide network to enable more Type 1 “immunotherapy” trials to take place – and to train the experts who will lead them.
Professor Desmond Johnston of Imperial College London will continue work to identify those newly diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes so that more people can be offered the opportunity to take part in clinical trials.
Dr Tim Tree, also at King’s College London, will set up a network of specialist laboratories to study the impact of the trials, investigating how different treatments work.
The studies, funded by £4.4million from Diabetes UK with support from Tesco and co-funding from the JDRF diabetes research charity, are being launched at Diabetes UK’s conference in London, which starts today.
Type 1 diabetes is an unavoidable condition with a huge impact on the lives of more th Continue reading

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Can Stem Cells Prevent Diabetes Vision Loss?

As the leading cause of blindness in adults, diabetic retinopathy is a type of eye disease that can often go undetected and untreated until it's too late.
Yet using stem cell research, a team from the University of Virginia School of Medicine found that stem cells from donors who don't have diabetes could be an effective way to treat and prevent vision loss caused by the blood sugar condition.
The findings will now help researchers determine what to look for when "harvesting" a patient's cells so treatments can be most effective in reversing and preventing eye damage.
"It answers a vital question: If we're going to carry this therapy forward into clinical trials, where are we going to get the best bang for the buck?" said Dr. Paul Yates, ophthalmologist and researcher at UVA.
From liposuction to a cure?
Hoping to harvest fat-based cells taken from liposuction procedures, researchers believe they can halt the process of vision deterioration in patients who have diabetic eye disease.
Diabetic retinopathy affects more than an estimated 100 million people and, besides blindness, can cause long-term damage that requires laser therapy or frequent injections into the eyeball to manage the condition.
Researcher Shayn M. Peirce said the FDA's encouragement of vision-related stem cell research is propelling forward much-needed research into this area.
"There's huge room for improvement on the standard of care, and the number of patients in this demographic is increasing by the day, dramatically, so the need is only going up," Peirce said.
Source: UVA
Image courtesy of dream designs/F Continue reading

This Vitamin Deficiency May Be Causing a Diabetes Epidemic

Diabetes is a chronic illness where the body’s ability to metabolize sugars malfunctions. It afflicts millions of people—both adults and children—worldwide. A groundbreaking study performed by researchers from New York’s Weill Cornell Medical College, has unlocked the secret to vitamin A’s role in diabetes.
Vitamin A deficiency is more common than you think. According to Jennifer Brett, N.D. vitamin A deficiency is common in the United States among low-income groups. In addition, people who eat very-low-fat diets and who limit their consumption of liver, dairy foods and dark green vegetables, and those who experience fat malabsorption from conditions like celiac disease or infectious hepatitis can also become deficient in vitamin A.
Diabetes has Reached Epidemic Proportions
According to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 29 million people in the U.S. alone suffer from diabetes, and a quarter of those don’t even know they have it (you can get familiar with these 13 early warning signs of diabetes you shouldn’t ignore).
Diabetes may be type 1, once called juvenile diabetes, or type 2, also known as adult-onset diabetes. However, in recent years more younger people have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and a recent study may have the key to answering the burning question: Why?
Vitamin A and Diabetes – the Connection
In a groundbreaking rodent study performed by researchers from New York’s Weill Cornell Medical College, scientists unlocked the secret to vitamin A’s role in diabetes.
The data, published in the Decem Continue reading

Vitamin D Proves Helpful For Women with Diabetes and Depression

Women with type 2 diabetes tend to have worse outcomes than men with the same diagnosis.
The reason for this may be that more than 25 percent of women with diabetes also have depression, and symptoms of depression interfere with the ability to manage diabetes successfully.
A cost-effective way for women to address this problem might be taking a readily available supplement that has minimal side effects. Recent research indicates that vitamin D supplements not only improve the mood of depressed, diabetic women, but it also lowers their blood pressure significantly.
How Diabetes and Depression are Linked
It is not surprising that many women (and men) have diabetes and depression together since the two illnesses are linked several ways.
The CDC reports that having diabetes doubles an individual’s risk of developing depression.
Both diagnoses have common risk factors including family history, blood pressure problems, obesity and coronary artery disease.
The two diagnoses share symptoms. Anxiety, fatigue, irritability, and restlessness are signs of depression – and of blood sugar that is too high or too low.
Having to manage diabetes can trigger depressive symptoms, and the depressive symptoms make managing diabetes more difficult. Then the diabetes worsens, and the added stress aggravates the depression. A vicious circle.
Having depression with diabetes creates additional health risks as well. People with both illnesses have a 52 percent greater chance of experiencing a heart attack or stroke. Depressed diabetics also tend to have higher blood glucose levels than those who Continue reading

Scientists Create A Painless Patch That Can Control Diabetes Without Injections

Insulin injections are painful, and millions of Americans who suffer from diabetes can attest to that. But this pain may soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new invention from researchers at the University of North Carolina and NC State.
This incredible team of researchers has now created a “smart insulin patch” which detects increases in blood sugar levels and secretes doses of insulin into the bloodstream as needed. The relatively hands-off method is a major breakthrough, as scientists have been trying for decades to make regular insulin injections for diabetics unnecessary.
Covered in natural beta cells, the simple synthetic patch would eliminate the pain of injections, and even take out the worry work of monitoring as well. Though it hasn’t been tested on humans as of yet, it’s already been shown to safely control the blood sugar levels of mice for at least 10 hours at a time.
Beta cells are typically found in the pancreas, where they produce insulin to help the body process excess sugar in the bloodstream after a meal. People with diabetes, however, have damaged beta cells, or aren’t capable of producing enough insulin to keep their blood sugar levels in check. This is why they require regular insulin injections.
The researchers initially presented the idea last year, but this new and improved version contains real, live beta cells as opposed to synthetic insulin. Kept safely outside of the patient’s body, the beta cells have no chance of being rejected by the immune system.
“We have designed a patch for diabetes that works fast, is easy to use, and i Continue reading