T1 CURE...????? really

Robinredbreast said:

Especially today, it's my birthday

ps women are more emotional than the majority of men in a matter of a fact way, and that is a fact as seen on the forum, tenfold

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!!!!!!! @Robinredbreast

Enjoy it won't you !!!

Mike

Brian_H said:

tbh I find discussions like this more depressing than diabetes.

When making the comparison with the theistic type of argument, it was convenient to line up the atheists with those who believe that there will never be a cure .....see what did there with the word belief ??

One could say that the people who say that a cure will eventually be possible actually align with the evolutionists, as they can see the road ahead for evolution in medicine. If I went back only 100 years in a time-machine, let alone 1000 years, think of all the people I could instantly save from many slow deaths just with penicillin.

For those who say that loss of beta cells is like loss of a limb, well there is even the possibility that one day limbs can be made to grow back. On "the Last Leg" a couple of weeks ago, Adam Hills said to Alex Brooker "if a pill was available that, if you took it, made your limbs grow back, would you take it?". Alex Brooker replied that he would not, because he was content with the way he was. He than asked Adam Hills if he would take it, to which Adam said "sure as hell I would, as you get older, using a prosthetic limb puts a strain on the other leg, which puts a strain on your back". Having had diabetes now for 46 years, I know exactly what Adam meant..

I'm not looking for a cure in my lifetime and I never expected one in my lifetime, but to believe that cures for loss of limbs and cures for all sorts of losses of parts will never happen, is like believing that what we know today defines the way the world will be forever.

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Great post and I thought very well written, I enjoyed reading it. Thanks

I wonder sometimes whether there should be more research on the root cause rather than a cure. My guess (big guess) is something like 90% of research is towards a cure. Being an engineer, the root cause has always been the important aspect and should see 90% of research. It would be nice to think that our children and grandchildren would be disease free. This applies not only to diabetes but also cancer etc. I guess the problem is, there is money to be made in the cure side, not so much in the root cause.

Ian DP said:

I wonder sometimes whether there should be more research on the root cause rather than a cure. My guess (big guess) is something like 90% of research is towards a cure. Being an engineer, the root cause has always been the important aspect and should see 90% of research. It would be nice to think that our children and grandchildren would be disease free. This applies not only to diabetes but also cancer etc. I guess the problem is, there is money to be made in the cure side, not so much in the root cause.

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Well, it's not strictly true that there is no research into the root cause. There has been quite a lot, which is why the various vaccine approaches have been put forward.

In summary, based on what I've read and the conversations I've had with a number of consultants, the absolute root cause for auto-immune diabetes is proving extremely hard to pin down, as are the genetic variations that can provide indicators as to who might be susceptible. The vaccines that have been developed only seem to have countered one aspect of the causes of diabetes and as a result, research is still very much ongoing.

The difficulty is that the two forms of diabetes aren't necessarily consistent with one another (similar set of symptoms, probably different causes) and the impact of T2 is much more prevalent. From a benefit for buck perspective, fixing T2s followed by fixing T1s followed by stopping the onset altogether is the most useful approach given the current population.

In terms of research, we really are still trying to get beyond the Triage stage of treatment!

If there was a cheap vaccine for T2 you can imagine the funding that would pour in, given the massive scale and explosive growth of T2 all over the world.

Of course if the cheap preventative measure for T2 was the restriction of carbs, or calories, rather than an injectable vaccine, that would go straight on the back burner and probably just fall down the back of the stove and into the cracks.

Yes, we already have a 'vaccine' and 'cure' for T2, but the spending on promoting it is smaller than the rounding errors in a big pharma marketing budget. :-/

Brian_H said:

tbh I find discussions like this more depressing than diabetes.

When making the comparison with the theistic type of argument, it was convenient to line up the atheists with those who believe that there will never be a cure .....see what did there with the word belief ??

One could say that the people who say that a cure will eventually be possible actually align with the evolutionists, as they can see the road ahead for evolution in medicine. If I went back only 100 years in a time-machine, let alone 1000 years, think of all the people I could instantly save from many slow deaths just with penicillin.

For those who say that loss of beta cells is like loss of a limb, well there is even the possibility that one day limbs can be made to grow back. On "the Last Leg" a couple of weeks ago, Adam Hills said to Alex Brooker "if a pill was available that, if you took it, made your limbs grow back, would you take it?". Alex Brooker replied that he would not, because he was content with the way he was. He than asked Adam Hills if he would take it, to which Adam said "sure as hell I would, as you get older, using a prosthetic limb puts a strain on the other leg, which puts a strain on your back". Having had diabetes now for 46 years, I know exactly what Adam meant..

I'm not looking for a cure in my lifetime and I never expected one in my lifetime, but to believe that cures for loss of limbs and cures for all sorts of losses of parts will never happen, is like believing that what we know today defines the way the world will be forever.

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You're right of course, but just the same as anything else, everyone's argument/opinion has its own parameters. My angle is 'they won't find a cure in my lifetime or my son's' - basically, all the time that will ever matter to me. 'Forever' in the true sense means nothing at all, as very few humans will ever hit 100 years, yet alone eternity.

Based on my parameters, I'll stick by my opinion. I've lived through practically 40 years of what appears to be big advances, but what have essentially come down to technology advancing to make the delivery of the same substances easier.

Throughout this thread, though, it's always been looked at as though the people who don't think there will be a cure are 'negative'. Once again, to stress the point - I don't care if there's a cure. I'm doing just fine as I am. Would I like an artificial pancreas? Absolutely! I'll be the first in line, but I'm not all that bothered, truth be told. I'M Diabetic - it's part of me - like my blue eyes, tattoos and bald head, and just the same as my blue eyes, tattoos and bald head, I'm more than comfortable with being diabetic.

I guess I just find the idea of people pining for a cure to something which (if you approach it correctly) is pretty easy to live with, quite annoying and a bit misguided, really. No apologies for that - you can't really change the things that annoy you no matter how compassionate you are.

It's only just over 90 years that insulin was first used,otherwise all of us type 1 would be dead because of DKA.Look how thing have improved since the first use of insulin,so I hold out hope and believe one day,yes,a cure.

I developed type 1 in January 1959 after having Asian flu. My grandmother died from untreated diabetes in 1924 the year insulin was first used clinically. She also had flu before becoming diabetic. Through researching my family tree I have discovered that diabetes is rife on that side of the family so I must have a genetic fault. Neither of my brothers developed it and it missed my mother and her brother. I firmly believe that it was the flu virus that caused me to get this condition.
I have been on insulin for 56 years and have been fortunate in that I have remained fairly healthy although I have always been very careful about my diet. My consultant told me that was due to discipline. My current GP said that I have good genes! Pardon! When I was diagnosed I was determined to live a 'normal' life but is it normal to have to do a BG test every time you get behind the wheel of a car. Is it normal to have to mentally add up the carbs you might eat at a meal and then inject insulin before you eat.
However much I wanted to do what others were free to do that was not always possible so I just shrugged and tried something else. Back in the 60s life was different.
But ... and it is a big but ... although I have had a happy life I would be lying if I said that diabetes had not hindered my life because it has. I do not have any children because I could not shoulder the responsibility of passing this condition on to other generations.
How I would love for the research scientists to find a cure but like others on this forum I have very grave doubts that that will ever happen. I believe that the management of the condition will get better, as it has in my lifetime, but a cure? Don't pin your hopes on that.

I wonder if everyone here thinks of the word 'cure' in the same context?

It might be that we may never be in a position to reverse T1 in an adult ( but no harm in hoping). But what if you knew that a new born child had a genetic disposition towards developing diabetes and you could give a simple injection that would prevent the immune system from going haywire later in life? Would you consider that to be a cure?

I've read of ONE verified cure of t1, probably the only one so far.
However, it had enough side effects that few of you will want to
try that method. Someone had an immune system problem that
was expected to kill him in perhaps a year, and also t1. The best
treatment available for that immune system condition was to kill
all the bone marrow with radiation, then perform a bone marrow
transplant, leaving the patient alive but requiring anti-rejection
medicines for the rest of his life. His doctors were able to find a
bone marrow donor with a small genetic difference that prevented
producing the type of white blood cells that attack the beta cells
of the pancreas. He had enough pancreas stem cells that he was
then able to regenerate enough beta cells for a cure.

Most of the other people offering a cure or reversal for diabetes
forget to mention that their definition of "cure" and/or "reversal"
does not match the definition used by the rest of the English-speaking
world.


Gene therapy by injecting viruses designed to insert a new gene
section is already in use occasionally, but with a major problem -
there is no control of where the new section is inserted into the
old genes, and if some cell gets it in the middle of a section that
prevents cancer in that type of cell, the patient has a significant
risk of developing cancer about ten years later. Leukemia in the
patient I've read about, but animal tests indicate that several other
types of cancer are also possible.


A Dr. Faustman is trying to develop to treatment to stop white
blood cell attacks on the beta cells, by using the BCG vaccine to
keep those white blood cells busy doing something else. The phase
1 trial included only 3 people with t1. One was able to stop taking
insulin for a few months, and another was able to reduce the amount
of insulin used. This suggests that some, but not all, of the people
with t1 still have enough stem cells in their pancreas to regenerate
the beta cells if the immune system stops attacking them. Note that
this was tried on too few people with t1 to say much on what
percentage it will help, though.

http://www.faustmanlab.org/


A recent article on a new possibility:

<http://www.monacowealthmanagement.c...ness-breakthrough-pill-can-cure-diabetes.php>

It involves controlling diabetes by daily use of a pill that contains
probiotics designed to produce insulin in the upper intestine. Tried
only on rats so far. At least one reporter has been seen describing
this as a cure for both t1 and t2, though.

I expect the major drug companies to work on such a cure only AFTER
at least one small drug company starts making money offering such a
cure, and the small drug companies to start offering one only after some
independent researcher does most of the work to develop such a cure.

urbanracer said:

I wonder if everyone here thinks of the word 'cure' in the same context?

It might be that we may never be in a position to reverse T1 in an adult ( but no harm in hoping). But what if you knew that a new born child had a genetic disposition towards developing diabetes and you could give a simple injection that would prevent the immune system from going haywire later in life? Would you consider that to be a cure?

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Personally I wouldn't label that as a cure ... but many would

BigRedSwitch said:

Two things:

1) the statement above is correct. We are cash-cows to drug companies. Why would they cut of a guaranteed multi billion pound revenue stream to cure an illness that a small monitory can live perfectly reasonable lives with? That's not cynicism - that's just seeing the world of business for what it is. The drug companies don't see us as precious little individual rainbows, they see us as numbers on a statistics chart and money in their bank accounts. Make peace with it.

2) there won't be a cure because of what has happened to type 1 diabetics internally. We've LOST the part of us that makes insulin, and there is no way to regenerate that. We could have them transplanted, sure - but then we'd need to take anti rejection drugs which are worse than insulin by quite some margin. They could maybe engineer new islets from stem cells, but that would be a lengthy and costly process, so would be very unlikely available to a vast majority of us. We also don't really know whether getting new islets would 'fix' us - what if the autoimmunity which caused us to be type 1 in the first place is a fault which never goes away, and we'd just end up killing the new islets? There's no way to judge this, as anyone who has had a pancreas transplant is on anti rejection drugs to suppress their immune system anyway, so until someone makes islets from stem cells, we wouldn't even know if that would even work!

The end for type 1 diabetes will come from a vaccine. That means that if you're type 1 and you're reading this, you're going to be type 1 for the rest of your life. That includes me (38 years type 1 - diagnosed aged 3), and my son (5 - diagnosed by me at 20 months).

Would I sooner not be diabetic? Sure. Do I let it rule my life? No way. I keep telling my boy we're 'bionic, like iron-man', and that's the outlook everyone with type 1 should have. Embrace the thing you hate - it'll inly get the better of you if you let it. Always fight to have a normal life. If you're not well, complain to your doctor. If they don't help you, find another doctor. You're all in charge of your own destiny, so don't endure other people's failings.

And please, please, please don't pin any real degree of hope on a cure. You've got more chance of winning the lottery.

Twice.

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You have some good points in this but I think it's quite sad that you don't even have a slightest inkling of hope.

There have been huge developments recently but obviously it does take time, sure all of us now might not see the cure but one day the "eureka" moment will happen.

Yep, agreed ... you can get on with it as BRS wishes to do, but I don't believe I've ever come across anybody (yet) that doesn't hope for something. Health, happiness, support, faith, love, comfort, safety, friendships ......

You can't grab any of them from the shelf and drink them with your morning coffee. But they live with you .... always.

Seriously_Sax1989 said:

You have some good points in this but I think it's quite sad that you don't even have a slightest inkling of hope.

There have been huge developments recently but obviously it does take time, sure all of us now might not see the cure but one day the "eureka" moment will happen.

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'Hope' would suggest a sadness in the fact that I'm diabetic.

Genuinely, I don't care.

I don't let it affect my life any more than I let shaving my head affect my life.

Any 'sadness' I feel is accompanied by frustration at the people who DO 'hope' for a cure.

If there was a 'eureka' moment, then great. Otherwise I'll just continue - happily - as I am.

I don't care if there's a cure or not.

Given the information at hand - and a deep understanding of the way type 1 works - from 38 years of consuming that information, and 41 cumulative years of dealing with it - it won't happen in my lifetime or my sons lifetime.

And I'm just fine with that.

I would appreciate it if this was understood, and you didn't waste your sadness on something which really doesn't require it. Seems I'm amongst the happiest people on this thread, as I don't NEED hope.

Hope

1. 1.
   a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen.
   "he looked through her belongings in the hope of coming across some information"
   synonyms: aspiration, desire, wish, expectation, ambition, aim, plan, dream, daydream, pipe dream;

BigRedSwitch said:

I don't care if there's a cure or not.

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BRS, how do you reconcile that statement with this?

BigRedSwitch said:

If there was a 'eureka' moment, then great.

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I get the gist of what you're saying and you're resigned to it and getting on with life. Most of us do. That's in our DNA.

All the best, and again, I love the get up and at 'em attitude.

Mike

BigRedSwitch said:

'Hope' would suggest a sadness in the fact that I'm diabetic.

Genuinely, I don't care.

I don't let it affect my life any more than I let shaving my head affect my life.

Any 'sadness' I feel is accompanied by frustration at the people who DO 'hope' for a cure.

If there was a 'eureka' moment, then great. Otherwise I'll just continue - happily - as I am.

I don't care if there's a cure or not.

Given the information at hand - and a deep understanding of the way type 1 works - from 38 years of consuming that information, and 41 cumulative years of dealing with it - it won't happen in my lifetime or my sons lifetime.

And I'm just fine with that.

I would appreciate it if this was understood, and you didn't waste your sadness on something which really doesn't require it. Seems I'm amongst the happiest people on this thread, as I don't NEED hope.

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I'm not wasting sadness on you. If your happy being pessimistic then carry on but some of us like to think there could be a cure sometime.

No there prob won't be a cure in yours or your sons lifetime but don't resent the possibility that one day there could be.

Seriously_Sax1989 said:

I'm not wasting sadness on you. If your happy being pessimistic then carry on but some of us like to think there could be a cure sometime.

No there prob won't be a cure in yours or your sons lifetime but don't resent the possibility that one day there could be.

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'Pessimism' and 'resent'.

Neither of those words apply to me or anything I've said.

I'd embrace a cure. I don't 'hope' for one, but I wouldn't turn it down. I'm just realistic in my expectations.

There's nothing pessimistic or resentful about my attitude at all. In fact, 'hoping' for a cure is resentment of the position you're in, and pessimism that you cannot live an ordinary life.

Neither of those apply to me. Never have, never will.

Hope is what keeps us going as human beings, we hope for a better life for ourselves and for that of our family's, it's a natural instinct and one which everyone should embrace, diabetes will eventually be consigned to the history books and the sooner it is the better.

Right ok, we're obviously not ever going to come to any common ground so let's leave it here. You say you're not pessimistic I say you are, you basically think I'm weak for having hope, I disagree.