Diabetes Cure: How far away are we?

Nurses General Nursing

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I was just wondering how far away do you think a cure for diabetes is.

Heartattaq

38 Posts

Nowadays where morals have gone to the wayside of the almighty dollar. I would bet the farm we are a long ways away.

Medical and pharmaceutical businesses today are more concerned with treating than curing people IMO. There is just too many people with Diabetes and too much money being made from oral diabetic agents and insulin that I don't thinkn they are trying to hard to find a cure.

Just my opinion though.

nekhismom

1,104 Posts

I feel that way about most diseases, really. I'm sure cures are KNOWN for many things, but it is simply more profitable for the pharm. companies to treat than cure, IMHO.

ferfer

40 Posts

:) We have a cure!! Here in Alberta, Canada, one of the hospitals discovered a "cure" several years ago. It is islet cell transplants from pancreas donors. The cells are implanted and begin producing insulin, leading to a complete cessation of injections!!!! The unfortunate part is that there are so few donors and these treatments are reserved for brittle diabetics. Type into a search engine the "Edmonton Protocol" for diabetes.

nekhismom

1,104 Posts

yes, ferfer, but as you said, not enough donors and too many recipients. It takes MANY donors to create a large enough amount of cells for the transplant. But, at least it's something, right??

See, I think stem cell research holds a lot of promise. Now, I'm not going there with the stem cells from aborted fetuses thing, but we all know you can get stim cells from live newborn's umbilical blood. THAT is something I would be very interested in researching and developing, if ever I had the education and opportunity.

mrdoc2005

194 Posts

:) We have a cure!! Here in Alberta, Canada, one of the hospitals discovered a "cure" several years ago. It is islet cell transplants from pancreas donors. The cells are implanted and begin producing insulin, leading to a complete cessation of injections!!!! The unfortunate part is that there are so few donors and these treatments are reserved for brittle diabetics. Type into a search engine the "Edmonton Protocol" for diabetes.

I had heard something about this. I had also heard that the success rate was real low. (being successful over 5 years.) I will search that though.

I am type I and have been for about 12 years. I am in control and have no complication but lost my aunt in 96 and my mother in 99 to kidney failure thus I am trying to stay on top of all new research.

Thanks for your replies.

Matthew

suzanne4, RN

26,410 Posts

There are actually a few experimental programs going on right now, I think one is in Boston, where they are using stem cells to essentially grow the islet cells since there are not enough donors available.

Hope that they have good results with this. They have had good results in animals and are supposedly have started testing on the human phase now...

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