Canadian researchers report diabetes breakthrough....a possible cure?

Scientists at a Toronto hospital have reported discovering proof that the body's nervous system helps trigger diabetes, and that injecting diabetic mice with a substance to counteract malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas rendered them "healthy virtually overnight."

The findings were reported in the Dec. 14, 2006 issue of the journal Cell. Any treatment resulting from the line of research conducted by scientists at the Hospital for Sick Children is probably years away, however. Results from studies on human subjects are expected within a year or two.

"I've never seen anything like it," said Dr. Hans Michael Dosch, an immunologist at the hospital and a leader of the studies. "In my career, this is unique."

Their conclusions upset conventional wisdom that Type 1 diabetes, the most serious form of the illness that typically first appears in childhood, was solely caused by auto-immune responses -- the body's immune system turning on itself.

They also conclude that there are far more similarities than previously thought between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and that nerves likely play a role in other chronic inflammatory conditions, such as asthma and Crohn's disease.

Dosch was interested in the presence of a large number of pain neurons "primarily used to signal the brain that tissue has been damaged" around the insulin-producing islets in the pancreas. He and his colleague injected capsaicin --

the active ingredient in hot chili peppers -- to kill the pancreatic sensory nerves in mice that had an equivalent of Type 1 diabetes.

"Then we had the biggest shock of our lives," Dr. Dosch said. Almost immediately, the islets began producing insulin normally. "It was a shock literally out of left field, because nothing in the literature was saying anything about this."

Read the rest of the Canadian National Post article here.

This finding further illustrates the interconnection between mind and body....which already was apparent in the fact that stress alone will raise blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.

The research seems to be directed toward pharmaceutical solutions to diabetes, but I think the findings also reinforce how behavioral/non-drug approaches might help.

We already know that exercise helps control diabetes -- people with Type 2 diabetes have been able to control their condition with diet and exercise alone, without medication, or have been able to get off medication, even without losing weight. (Which itself illustrates that weight -- or "obesity" -- itself is not the operative factor, or best element, to target in diabetes treatment.) What if something like massage therapy, which positively affects the nervous system by helping people relax as well as decrease pain, might also help people with diabetes? Might be worth exploring.

I do wonder, though, about the economic ramifications of a cure for diabetes. Not that these researchers are necessarily saying their findings will result in an outright cure....but still, the possibility got me thinking. Would pharmaceutical companies be interested in developing a drug that cures a chronic condition?

Think of all the OTHER drugs -- and medical equipment and supplies and clinics and research programs and organizations -- directly tied to diabetes that would soon have no target patient population if there was a cure. I've recently read (unfortunately, I can't remember where, so take this with a grain of salt) that when the discovery of antibiotics made tuberculosis curable, the industry built upon tuberculosis (sanitoriums, for instance) foundered and many businesses went bankrupt. A small price to pay to save lives, of course. But how motivated would pharmaceutical companies be to find  drugs that actually cure diabetes -- or any other chronic condition/disease?

Who knows? Still, it's good news, IMO. And until the results are in on how this works with human beings....perhaps it wouldn't hurt to get regular massages and apply hot sauce liberally at dinner.

Comments

[Kell]

Holy socks. There's major potential in this. Please any Gods Who May Be Out There, may this not wind up as orphan research.

This sort of relationship has occurred to me before, but more as a hunch. (I.e. how come my mother's asthma attacks have the same triggers as my migraines, and where do blood sugar swings fit in, etc.)

More and more, I'm convinced we know almost nothing about how human bodies work, that we've been trying to apply analytical, "Newtonian" tools better suited to inert matter to living, dynamic systems. Instead of thinking in linear cause & effect, we should be thinking in terms of algorithms & mathematical chaos. (Oliver Sacks gets into this.)

And, of course, pursuing pleasure and challenge and quiet clarity and bliss will all help keep us well, for reasons that can be understood scientifically, just as the wise guys have been telling us for 8,000 some-odd years. That's the closest we get, so far, to a comprehensive understanding of the weave of relationships between those systems.

And, on a more somber note, the problem of bulldozing a "cure" over a tiny part of a person, frequently at the expense of the whole system -- their health, happiness or even their life, is one of numerous reasons the dietary-pharmaceutical complex scares the living daylights out of me.

To thine own self be true, pals & gals. It's good for you.