Student discovers possible diabetes cure
A Swedish study in mice has confirmed that boosting the immune system can prevent type 1 diabetes from developing A theoretical cure for type 1 diabetes that was discovered by a Danish PhD student has been confirmed by a Swedish...
A Swedish study in mice has confirmed that boosting the immune system can prevent type 1 diabetes from developing
A theoretical cure for type 1 diabetes that was discovered by a Danish PhD student has been confirmed by a Swedish study according to Videnskab.dk.
Using a mathematical model, the Kenneth Hagde Mandrup Nielsen from the University of Roskilde’s Department of Science, Systems and Models, found that boosting a person’s immune system with so-called ‘macrophage’ cells could prevent the development of the disease.
“By playing with the variables in the model I discovered that introducing more macrophages could prevent the development of type 1 diabetes,” he told Videnskab.
His results were confirmed in a Swedish study carried out at the Karolinska Insitute.
“By giving mice [with a genetic condition that causes type 1 diabetes] active macrophages before the diabetes set in, we were able to prevent the disease developing in 85 percent of mice, “ Robert Harris, who lead the study, told Videnskab.
Nielsen shared Harris’ view that the treatment could be used to prevent the disease developing in people who are genetically predisposed it.
“I imagine in the future that we could test babies to see if they carry a genetic markers for diabetes,” Nielsen said. “If that is the case they might be able to be cures using macrophages before their illness develops.”
Diabetes is an illness in which the body is unable to manage the body’s blood sugar level using the hormone insulin – a blood sugar level that is either too high or too low can be harmful to the body or even fatal.
Type 1 diabetes accounts for about 10 percent of Denmark’s 300,000 diabetes cases and usually develops quite suddenly in childhood.
Allan Flyvbjerg, Decan of Health at the University of Aarhus said the study showed some promise.
“It’s an interesting approach to treating Type 1 diabetes which we know so little about,” Flyvbjerg told Videnskab. “Unfortunately mice are not the ideal model for the causes of type 1 diabetes in humans even though they are our best option at the moment. So there is no guarantee that the results can be transferred to clinical studies of people with the disease.”
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