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Lettuce Hope. But Not Too Much.

Lettuce as a potential cure for diabetes? I told you I was looking into it. My instinct said ‘BS’ (and that doesn’t stand for ‘blood sugar’). I queried a few experts in the last few days, and it looks like I wasn’t too far off.

So the headlines were all abuzz last week with (yet another) breakthrough that “may have finally unlocked the code to wipe diabetes completely off the map.”

Dr. Henry Daniell and his team of 20 bio-medical researchers have worked for five years, experimenting with genetically modified lettuce grown in a lab at the University of Central Florida. The leaves are placed in a machine and injected with the human gene for insulin, then powdered and fed to mice. After eight weeks, the treated mice were producing normal levels of insulin.

So, what about it? Good for humans, too? Any time in this century, or this millennium??

“Lettuce is a cute gimmick… (but) I don’t see it as any kind of breakthrough,” Dr. Jay Skyler tells me. He is director of academic programs at the Diabetes Research Institute in Miami, and Study Chairman for the nationwide Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet project.

He explains that Daniell’s study hasn’t proved anything new about the treatment or prevention of diabetes. It’s only proven that there are ever-more biological sources of insulin, including tobacco and carrots.

Research back in the late ’80s and early ’90s already showed that orally fed insulin will alter the immune attack of insulin-producing cells in mice.

“The problem is the concept of using oral insulin. It doesn’t work to lower glucose. It works to change the immune system so it won’t destroy islet cells in rodents. But studies with humans have been fundamentally inconclusive so far,” Skyler says.

Because these are prevention studies, they have to identify a group of very high-risk people and then follow them for 5 years or more to see if the disease onset is really delayed. A very drawn-out process, as you can imagine.

Essentially what Daniell is proposing is not far from Denise Faustman’s research — altering the immune system to prevent the attack on the pancreas. But even she has delayed her human trials because the complicated methodology for lab analysis of results isn’t quite ready yet, according to Skyler.

So when SHOULD we actually get excited about all these potential breakthroughs?

“If something shows potential promise without potential harm, I think it’s worth pursuing,” Skyler says. “(Denise Faustman) has gotten a lot of PR but not a lot of data. Unfortunately that’s often the case… My fundamental rule of thumb is that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Right. Thanks for the reality check, Dr. S.

Explore posts in the same categories: D-News Examined

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (12)

Comments

I tried to get in touch with Dr. Daniell with no luck.

In the meantime, I’ve posted this video on YouTube, which I am hoping to get into the YouChoose ‘08 initiative, to see what US presidential candidates have to say:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ACmFaFuKu0
Posted by: Manny Hernandez | September 11th, 2007 at 8:35 am
I’d like to comment on the statements below that were written in the previous posting comparing the recent “lettuce cure” and Dr. Faustman’s research:

“Essentially what Daniell is proposing is not far from Denise Faustman’s research — altering the immune system to prevent the attack on the pancreas. But even she has delayed her human trials because the complicated methodology for lab analysis of results isn’t quite ready yet, according to Skyler.
“(Denise Faustman) has gotten a lot of PR but not a lot of data.”

The lettuce research isn’t close to Dr. Faustman’s research. Most importantly, Faustman reversed and cured diabetes in mice with “end-stage” disease not prevention or early onset like the lettuce research and the other 200+ research projects that have been done in the past. Faustman’s treatment is based on 2 identical defects of the immune system found in the mice and humans. Too many times, scientists show a successful effect in prediabetic or early onset diseased mice with a treatment and jump to human trials calling it the first potential cure. Dr. Faustman has done her experiments on 100’s of mice (not just 20 or 30) and most improtantly knows why and how the treatment eliminated the autoreactive T cells selectively and has tons of data to back this up in mice (which has been confirmed by multiple labs )and in human blood samples from her pre-clinical work that has been ongoing for several years.
The pace of Dr. Faustman’s research to human trials has solely been dependent on funding. The research has done nothing but progress to developing the first bioassay for autoimmunity and reliable automation process for the human trials. Dr. Fausmtan’s research is by far the most data collected to support the possiblity of reversing and curing diabetes in humans who already live with the disease. To say that she has gotten alot of PR without any data is not true. She has collected over 1200 blood samples from humans of all ages and stages of diabetes from a few months diagnosed to over 50 years living with the disease. Stating that the recent lettuce research is like Dr. Faustman’s most innovative human trial project for type I diabetes yet, just gives the reader false information.
Posted by: Sue Root | September 11th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Thanks for the input, Sue. I’m just reporting what the experts are telling me. As usual, the experts disagree.
Posted by: AmyT | September 11th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
I’m glad Sue was able to present a contrasting perspective on comparing the latest lettuce developments with Dr. Faustman’s research.

I would be concerned if all of the funding and effort into Dr. Faustman’s research only produced “a lot of PR but not a lot of data.” There’s definitely a lot of hope being invested in it.
Posted by: Albert | September 11th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
I wonder why is there no focus on glucagon in the battle against diabetes?
Posted by: Sunil S Chiplunkar | September 14th, 2007 at 3:27 am
If anyone is interested in the science behind the Great Lettuce Caper, I’ve blogged about it here: http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/5068/11951/lettuce-diabetes/
Posted by: gretchen | September 14th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
It is my opinion that researchers are very close to a cure for diabetes, however, I believe that health insurance companies would lose a large chunk of their profit driven revenue if a cure should be found. Does anyone really think the insurance companies really want a cure for a disease which is one of the most profitable?
Posted by: robin | September 25th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
You need to really know what you are talking about with respect to the lettuce cure…it’s an infused insulin gene in the cytoplast of the lettucs that doesn’t break open until it reaches the gut. At that point it is absorbed into the bloodstream and settles in the pancrease igniting adult stem cells to turn into beta cells that produce insulin. Please be careful to not dash the hopes of literally millions with your negativity. It seems that you do not have all the facts to make such comments.
Posted by: tricia | October 18th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Tricia,
I never presume to know all this stuff on my own. The “negativity” you sense here came from Dr. Jay Sklyer and other experts. Just passing on their very real skepticism that lettuce will bring a cure any time in the next century.
Posted by: AmyT | October 18th, 2007 at 9:37 am
what about the chili peper extract cure from Canada last December? Any new info on that? I think Diabetes will be cured by something very simple- something right under our noses
Posted by: mel | November 6th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Since diabetes is an autoimmune disease any agent that acts to produce insulin producing cells in the pancreas will also be fought off by the body which will probably produce unanticipated side effects. Were probably still a long way off on this one.
Posted by: Ken | August 28th, 2008 at 3:33 am
As I looked into the reports I at first was skeptical. I don’t care to have another delivery method for insulin since (as another comment pointed out) insulin is not a cure, but is only a temporary relief. But upon closer look, this technique with Lettuce is not to deliver insulin but is to stop the destruction of beta cells. See the following article:

http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/5068/11951/lettuce-diabetes/

In this article you see that what is happening is that they are using a trick to get the intestinal cells to take up intact proinsulin, not insulin itself. This proinsulin does not affect the blood sugar; instead it results in a significant increase in compounds that suppress immune responses. This causes a reduction in the immune system attack on the beta cells. Over time the body replaces beta cells and they are not destroyed, so this is a potential cure of type 1 diabetes. I would be very excited to take part in a trial to see if this has benefit. It may be that this pill would have to be taken the rest of my life to continue to prevent the destruction of beta cells, but that is better than taking insulin (and symlin) through pumps and injections to treat some of the issues of not having beta cells.

Greg
Posted by: Greg | September 27th, 2008 at 3:54 pm