(Originally published in Diabetes Mine, 5/2/2016)
Here we go again. Another wave of breathless new stories about a “cure” for diabetes (both type 1 and type 2) engulfed us in early February.
Two different headlines for an Associated Press story blared: “Johnson & Johnson, ViaCyte test possible diabetes cure ” and “Diabetes cure? Researchers may have found it.” Kids who read Youth Health Magazine got their hopes up with “Permanent Cure for Diabetes in Clinical Trials.”
Who knows? Maybe this one will be different from the whole organ pancreas transplants or the islet cell transplants that have been offering people with diabetes (PWDs) hope for…decades. Or the tuberculosis vaccine. Or the “Biohub.” Or the spammers’ promises of life without insulin and natural herbal cures that still bombard me. That’s just a short list of the unmet expectations I’ve experienced since my Type 1 diabetes was diagnosed in 1962.
The news about ViaCyte’s treatment is indeed promising. It uses embryonic stem cells, which are induced to turn into insulin-producing islet cells in the laboratory. The islets cells are then placed in a small capsule that is implanted under the skin, an “encapsulation” technique meant to ward off the immune attacks that have thwarted islet cell transplants in the past. It has gone well in mice and now the company has announced “encouraging early results” in a human clinical trial (Phase 1) testing safety and efficacy. [Read more…] about Another Day, Another Story of a Diabetes Cure