What is Type 1 Diabetes?
Type one diabetes is a chronic disease that is usually found among young adolescents. To this day there is no known cause for T1D. It is believed to be an autoimmune disease (to read about this click here: link). All is know for sure is that the patients beta cells are attacked and destroyed. In a normal pancreas these cells produce insulin (a hormone) that controls the person’s blood sugar. A type one diabetic must check their own blood sugar daily and keep a balance between having enough sugar and taking enough insulin. This condition can be very life threatening if not managed.
New cells: the cure?
The new medical advancements for T1D have hope. Diabetics already have new medicines and technology that helps them manage their condition, but now doctors are working on a cure. The main difficulty behind finding one is that there isn’t a full understanding of why the patients get diagnosed. Some researchers believe that islet cell transplants are the future cure. These insulin producing cells would be given to the patients. The best case scenario for this will be that the diabetics will be “cured” for three years and need very little help/therapy. However, there will be some cases where the cells will be rejected. This means that the immune system will attack the unknown cells and the whole transplant would be useless. Recently, doctors have discovered a way to predict if the transplant would take or not. This new research has a lot of hope but still needs time to develop before hitting the market.
T1D Vaccine
A second major development in this these field is a type one diabetes vaccine. This could potentially “cure” the patients for 5-8 years. This study used a vaccine that was intended to prevent tuberculosis (bacillus Calmette-Guérin). The study showed that the patients had 18% drop in A1C within four years. A team from Massachusetts General Hospital has been working very hard to get this trial on a larger scale. The research said that “the people who have received the vaccine are using about one-third less the amount of insulin as they did prior to vaccination, STAT News reports.” This is a huge difference and can potentially get the patients off insulin completely. This isn’t an instant cure but Dr.Denise Faustman says, “Diabetes didn’t occur in a day, and maybe the reversal doesn’t occur in a day.” If this vaccine can work for T1Ds it can potentially cure so many other autoimmune diseases.
Diet and T1D
Lastly, diabetics can make a choice to cut out sugar and cut down on their insulin. This would help prevent future complications, but it is easier said than done. To read more about how diet click here
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