WILDCARD! A cure for diabetes???

MAN – quite a bit going on just as December comes to a close!

Diabetes is an epidemic, especially in the United States, but increasingly all over the world. The cost of treatment is to be measured in the billions in the coming years. It complicates other diseases. You can go blind. They sometimes cut your feet off. It’s bad. And there is little hope for a cure.

Or is there? In the “Wildcard Event” department, a Canadian team of researchers is claiming to have shut off Type 1 Diabetes in mice.

The team found that abnormal nerve endings in the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas initiated a chain of events that caused Type 1 diabetes in mice. When they removed the nerve cells, the mice did not develop the disorder.That means diabetes may be a disease of the nervous system, not just an autoimmune disease.

It will probably be a while before this becomes a miracle cure for one of the most complex diseases in all of medicine…but it would be an incredible triumph if they can! Right up there with curing the common cold.

-Garland

Labels: Healthcare