Posted on 06/20/2008 9:38:11 PM PDT by neverdem
A radical technique for treating diabetes could recruit cells in the gut to make insulin
SAN DIEGO — If your pancreas fails you, go with your gut.
Inserting a gene into gut cells in mice enabled those cells to take over the pancreas’s job, producing insulin after meals, according to unpublished research announced June 18 in San Diego at the Biotechnology Industry Organization International Convention. The work may offer a novel way to treat diabetes.
"This is the first time that we've engineered a tissue that is not the pancreas to manufacture insulin" in animals, says researcher Anthony Cheung, a molecular biologist and cofounder of enGene, a biotechnology company based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
"It's going to be very beneficial to patients," comments Christopher Rhodes, research director of the Kovler Diabetes Center at the University of Chicago, who enGene asked to critique the research. "It's a very promising approach." Cheung says that he and his colleagues hope to begin safety trials in people by 2010.
People with diabetes don't produce enough insulin to properly control their blood sugar. Often, the pancreatic cells that produce the insulin have become damaged, either from attack by the immune system or from chronic overtaxing because of poor diet.
Existing treatments include frequent intravenous injections of insulin and transplant of pancreas cells from cadavers into diabetes patients. Scientists have also proposed using stem cells to make fresh pancreas cells for transplant. The new research presents the possibility of recruiting cells at the junction between the stomach and small intestines to make insulin instead.
"It's a lot simpler than transplanting beta cells," the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, Cheung says. The new approach could potentially treat both juvenile and late-onset diabetes, Rhodes adds.
New gene, new job
The gut cells, called K cells, sit at the...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
“Often, the pancreatic cells that produce the insulin have become damaged, either from attack by the immune system or from chronic overtaxing because of poor diet. “
Then how do they explain the virtually immediate remission of diabetes — within days — after gastric bypass surgery. It’s not the weight reduction, their diabetes disappears before they lose any weight.
I think the current theories on diabetes could be completely wrong.
Diabetes May Be Disorder Of Upper Intestine: Surgery May Correct It
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080305113659.htm
Growing evidence shows that surgery may effectively cure Type 2 diabetes - an approach that not only may change the way the disease is treated, but that introduces a new way of thinking about diabetes.
Clinical studies have shown that procedures that simply restrict the stomach’s size (i.e., gastric banding) improve diabetes only by inducing massive weight loss. By studying diabetes in animals, Dr. Rubino was the first to provide scientific evidence that gastrointestinal bypass operations involving rerouting the gastrointestinal tract (i.e., gastric bypass) can cause diabetes remission independently of any weight loss, and even in subjects that are not obese.
Dr. Rubino’s prior research has shown that the primary mechanisms by which gastrointestinal bypass procedures control diabetes specifically rely on the bypass of the upper small intestine - the duodenum and jejunum. This is a key finding that may point to the origins of diabetes.
In fact, bypass of the upper small intestine does not improve the ability of the body to regulate blood sugar levels. “When performed in subjects who are not diabetic, the bypass of the upper intestine may even impair the mechanisms that regulate blood levels of glucose,” says Dr. Rubino. In striking contrast, when nutrients’ passage is diverted from the upper intestine of diabetic patients, diabetes resolves.
This, he explains, implies that the upper intestine of diabetic patients may be the site where an abnormal signal is produced, causing, or at least favoring, the development of the disease.
They've found all sorts of ways to cure diabetes in mice. Unfortunately, mice and humans are too different -- the cures don't transfer; the techniques don't have the same effects.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Gastric banding or bypass won’t do anything for it. Those patients must get insulin.
You missed the point as far as gene therapy goes. They didn't use an modified adenovirus to piggyback the gene that they wanted to add. This technique could work for other cells along the G.I. tract from your mouth to your behind.
I’ve seen experiments done with balls of beta cells in semi-permeable membranes done years ago and nothing came from it. They successfully kept the cells from autoimmune attack while allowing glucose free entry into the membrane.
If you were a mouse. The diabetes researchers who I've heard speaking on the topic are quite clear in their comments about the difficulty of transferring mouse results to humans. It'd be great if this transferred, but I'm betting this is another example where mouse results are good for mice, and nobody else.
I agree... ‘intravenous’??? That’s what I’ve been doing all this time? I’m pretty certain that it’s subcutaneous.
And, I did not have a ‘poor diet’ before this.
sheesh.
If it doesn't work in mice, there's no hope of it working in humans. You have to get proof of principle in mammals first. Bigger critters are usually next after rodents, then primates, IIRC, before phase I FDA trials.
I am a diabetic, please include me.
Your analysis of the general consensus on gastric bypass and t2 diabetes is generally correct. The actual fact situation may be somewhat different. T2 diabetes is multi-factorial: shortage of trace metals that operate like insulin mimetics, hyperaminoacidemia, saturated fatty acid saturation, disrupted insulin signaling, phospholipid imbalances in cell membranes & insufficient insulin. Does it seem likely that all of these underlying conditions are permanently resolved with a gastric bypass?
T2 diabetics have different flora in the upper intestine and are able to uptake higher ratios of glucose at a higher rate of absorption than normal metabolic humans. Much of the immediate benefit of the gastric bypass may involve the avoidance/elimination of the extra efficient glucose processing of their unique upper intestinal flora.
The benefits of the gastric bypass may also be limited to those indviduals whose energy consumption levels have actually been dramatically reduced by the gastric bypass procedure. Some individuals are going to drink alcohol and drink other dense materials in pursuit of satiation which will reduce the effectiveness of the gastric bypass on a long term basis.
The really good news about the gastric bypass is the insight it provides into the relationship between starvation and the reduction of t2 diabetic symptoms.
I would speculate that 30% of the weight lost from gastric bypass efforts is actually lean muscle. If you extend that line far enough it goes straight to the graveyard.
You didn't use FReepmail. OK, I'll let it slide. But I'll appreciate attention to detail in the future. Diabetes is not to be trifled with. If you're a type 2 diabetic, exercise and watch what you eat.
Avoid HFCS(high fructose corn syrup). Try to read Fructose, insulin resistance, and metabolic dyslipidemia
Save Dorland's Medical Dictionary.
You have been added.
I was recently diagnosed a T2 diabetic (adult onset), please include me on your ping list. Thank you.
Are you talking about this? If so, they’ve done well in human trials. It’s just going very slowly.
June 5, 2008 Melbourne, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand - Living Cell Technologies Limited (ASX:LCT; OTC: LVCLY) today announced that the positive preliminary data from its first clinical trial of Diabecell® for insulin dependent type 1 diabetes has encouraged the Company to expand the trial and proceed with testing higher doses.
In LCT’s first Phase I/IIa trial of DiabeCell®, its lead product of encapsulated porcine insulin producing cells, 5 patients have been implanted with the lowest dose. As reported in the Company’s clinical update on 31 March 2008, there have been no significant adverse effects and a clinical effect was demonstrated with reduction in daily insulin requirement for up to six months follow up with satisfactory control of blood glucose.
Professor Bob Elliott, LCT Medical Director said, “The clinical effects observed with the lowest dose and the uncomplicated safety profile to date have encouraged our clinical experts in Moscow to implant higher doses with the expectation of greater clinical benefit.”
LCT’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Paul Tan said ‘the scientific and ethics approvals allowed the trial protocol to be revised and continued with the total number of patients increased from 6 to 10 at this stage. In subsequent implants, the dose of DiabeCell® will move up from 5,000 islet equivalents per kilogram body weight (IEQ/kg) to 10,000 IEQ/kg.’
“This revision of the clinical protocol in Moscow in effect expedites our clinical program for DiabeCell®,” said Dr Paul Tan.
The bariatric doctor I go to (I had gastric bypass 6 years ago, but didn’t have diabetes) says that this procedure is the ONLY cure that he knows of for Type II Diabetes. I personally know 3 people who had gastric bypass that are off ALL of their diabetic meds, and are no longer considered diabetic. There have been studies, and it appears that those with a milder form of diabetes as well as those with greater weight loss benefit the most. http://www.annalsofsurgery.com/pt/re/annos/abstract.00000658-200310000-00003.htm;jsessionid=LdpHpkv7hqyvrxhgnMfqlnnQdM3DCyL5t5XL84wM6gQC8GL7tp6l!2016747336!181195628!8091!-1
If you don’t like the rules, start your own ping list.
Naps, lighten up. Neverdem, sorry about that, I did not read it closely enough. I will next time.
Thanks for the insult. I'm a Family Practice doc. I've seen what diabetes can do up close. I thought the sarcasm was obvious. I wasn't trying to be a scold. I was trying to be helpful. Attention to detail can be the difference between life and death. A comment on a thread may not be read. If you're not obsessive/compulsive, it can easily be missed. That's why I asked for FReepmail.
Who made you king FRiend???/i>
I was asked to take over the diabetes list after Island Jeff, who had the original list, had a problem with one of the admin mods.
Sheesh, I am glad I have no interest in joining your group.
Don't do me any favors.
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