What if someone said that you — someone with type 1 diabetes — could take a pill and your insulin requirements would not only drop, but they might be eliminated completely? Would you think they were crazy, or maybe confusing you with a type 2?
Well, it may not be a matter of sanity or misunderstanding. We might not be talking about a “magic pill” to make your diabetes disappear, but the early stages of…
Neal Kaufman is not only the husband of famed endocrinologist and Medtronic exec Fran Kaufman; he’s also a diabetes guru of sorts in his own right. He’s an experienced clinician and educator who founded a company called DPS Health (Diabetes Prevention Source), that offers an intense coaching program using technology + real-life interventions to help people with pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes improve their lifestyles. Like us, he’s extremely interested in all sorts of D-technologies…
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In most areas of diabetes research, you don’t hear much until there’s a big breakthrough of some sort. And then it goes dark again.
That’s what happened several years ago on the then-hot topic of xenotransplantation, or the sourcing of islet cells for transplants. Some studies were launched using porcine cells and the press had a field day with headlines like “pig sushi diabetes trial.” Since then? Nada.
But recently, a New Zealand-based company called…
For as long as there has been research to cure diabetes, there have been people who believe that a cure will never happen because treating this disease is simply far too profitable. Those who believe in this so-called “conspiracy theory” are convinced that pharma companies have a vested interest in keeping diabetes around as long as possible because peddling their treatments is far bigger business than a cure could ever be.
We all know that…
Lots of organizations are working on new ways to accomplish islet cell transplantation in which the immune system does not kill off the transplanted cells. If they could do that, we’d likely have a cure for diabetes. But it ain’t easy, especially because we’re talking about transplanting into people whose immune systems are in mega-attack mode to begin with (type 1 diabetics).
The Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) in Florida is currently working on this challenge…