Musings of a Dinosaur

A Family Doctor in solo private practice; I may be going the way of the dinosaur, but I'm not dead yet.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

A Cure for Diabetes?

Why hasn't this gotten more play in the blogosphere? I just happened to see a link to it on Instapundit, when I went there checking out a link on hyperthyroidism on GruntDoc:
In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body's nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.

Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.

"I couldn't believe it," said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. "Mice with diabetes suddenly didn't have diabetes any more."

The researchers caution they have yet to confirm their findings in people, but say they expect results from human studies within a year or so. Any treatment that may emerge to help at least some patients would likely be years away from hitting the market.

This isn't just woo-based hype from some altie group; it appears to be the real thing, research-wise. Here's a summary of the article in the journal Cell, and here's the full text. Will diabetes go the way of ulcers (with the recognition of the role of the H. Pylori bacterium) in our lifetime? Exciting stuff.

2 Comments:

At Sun Dec 17, 03:42:00 PM, Blogger Big Lebowski Store said...

Like a lot of animal model research, this is great news if you're a mouse. Remember Judah Folkmann's work on angiogenesis inhibitors and solid tumors in mice?

best,

Flea

 
At Sun Dec 17, 06:07:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

great post, and great find.

i agree with flea, but went ahead and wasted two hours reading through the study:

here's my stab at it

 

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