Curing Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

[Leopathe]

Hello,

 

This is my first post on this thread, and I thought I'd make my first post about something personal to me, and just throw a around a few ideas. I am aiming to go into Immunology when I complete school, and this is what I would like to do research in. I've had diabetes for almost twenty years, I was born with it, and during the years I was coherent I have noticed a troubling trend.

 

Possible 'cures' show up and disappear like wildfire.

 

Many of these cures that show up target the beta cells, and how to replace them. While this would be a logical solution, Type 1 Diabetes is an Auto-Immune disease, meaning the body attacked these cells originally and destroyed them. If we learned how to replace these cells it would be great, we will need to anyway, but constantly replacing them seems expensive for the patient.

 

So my question is, is why over the years we have wasted our time trying to replace these cells when the problem is the immune system?

 

I fully understand that it will take a lot of work to rework the immune system to not attack itself, but would it not help other diseases to look more into this than the replacement of the beta cells?

 

Maybe I'm wrong, if you have other ideas I'd love to read about them and learn. I want to learn more about Immunology and the human body so please post your ideas. As someone living with it I tend to get very frustrated with seeing possible cures when it seems like what they should be working towards is somewhat ignored, so my vision gets clouded.

 

And yes, I know it would take a huge amount of time to do this, and money, but I rather that than having my hopes brought up and down constantly.

 

[Elite Engineer]

Autoimmunity is not a cut and dry "cure" like treating syphilis with antibiotics. While you're at it, you might as well be asking, why haven't we worked on a cure for cancer rather than treat patients with chemotherapy?

 

The fact of the matter is, scientists are still looking for a cure for both autoimmune diseases and cancer. At the moment, while there's no solution, so they have to make the best possible treatments to keep people healthy. Finding a cure for AD's is extremely complex and difficult.

 

When trying to "cure" an AD, you have to remove the antibodies that recognize the self antigens, and it's hard to remove one line of antibodies without effecting other antibodies, the cells that make them, and the individual as a whole. An AD is not like an infection that can be treated without harming the host. It's like fixing a broken gear on a transmission, where you "fix" the gear, but repaired gear is positioned slightly off and the whole transmission goes awry.

 

At the moment, the benefits of insulin treatment far outweigh the "benefits" of trying to find a cure.

 

~EE

Edited October 16, 2016 by Elite Engineer

[iNow]

Not directly addressing your question, but I suspect the artificial pancreas is far more likely to get us where we want to be than a cure... at least for now.

 

In terms of finding a cure, the financial incentives unfortunately push in the wrong dierection. Chronic illness requiring consistent treatments (see also: blood pressure and cholesterol melds) are major cash cows for pharmaceutical companies. Finding a cure kills a major revenue stream.

 

Finally, if the beta cells are already dead, it's already too late for stopping the immune system from attacking, isn't it? I thought that's why the focus was on beta cell replacement...

Edited October 17, 2016 by iNow