Tyrosine Kinase Cure Continued
Posted by insulintruth on January 3, 2009
I hope everyone had a good holiday and are looking forward to a good new year. I was ill with a cold and a persistent cough, along with the usual sugar complications, but am mostly better now.
I have a few more details about Tyrosine Kinase inhibition as a cure for Type I diabetes. As detailed in the Dec 18 article from Science-Business eXchange, the key action is inhibition of PDGF, or platelet-derived growth factor. It is this action alone that is involved in suppressing the process which kills (or suppresses) the insulin-producing beta cells. Inhibiting PDGF allows, so far, young cells to resume function. The current theory (see article in blogroll) is that this will probably be effectve in recently-diagnosed patients, and less so in long-term sufferers, but this is true only if the beta cells are actually dead. and, as I mentioned earlier, a paper was released about ten years ago demonstrating they were still alive, but just suppressed. I showed it to and discussed with my Dr. at the time, but no longer have the citation. If they can be revived, then this approach would work for long-term diabetics as well. Research is ongoing. A patent has been applied for by UCSF, who conducted the original study showing the effectiveness of this approach for the restoration of beta cell function, After that, a PDGF-specific inhibitor (which we already have and is already approved for human use through its inclusion in the abovementioned drugs) needs to be released. We need to let as many people as possible know about this, to pressure anyone involved to release such a drug. It is seems unlikely Big Pharma will rush to eliminate a condition which nets them billions every year, so we will have to be as vocal as possible.
There is also another promising approach yielding results which address some of the issues I mentioned earlier regarding transplantation of beta cells. Take a look at the Physorg.com article about reprogramming donor cells to evade onn’e auto-immune response. Using proteins from adenoviruses (Adenoviruses infect tissues that line the respiratory tract, eyes, intestines, and urinary tract), that evade the body’s immune responses, researchers have been able to transfer this property to transplanted mouse beta cells, allowing them to function up to three months at a time, with the anticipation that this time will be significantly extended as they narrow down the choice of which specific proteins are needed. The article inclides comments from Denise Faustman, who has been conducting her own groundbreaking research into curing diabetes for at least the last decade. You can find out more about her work at Scott Strumello’s blog (see blogroll).
Jim Yoakum said
Hi Michael! Very good article. It seems that more than one strategy for a cure is supported by data to be sound or, at the very least, promising. Curious- how much does diabetes affect the bottom line of the pharmaceutical industry? How many pills would you have to sell at $90 a pop to make that up?
insulintruth said
Hi, Jim, I just did a search on drug company profits, and while you can find aggregate reports for Lilly, and I presume Novolin, they don’t break them down by the drug. Perhaps someone can find that for me, I’d like to know too.
When you add up how much we spend every year on insulin, and multiply by the # of diabetics, it gives you an idea, but finding the correct figure for type 1s has become increasingly problematic, not, I believe, an accident. When I became diabetic in 1974, I was told there were 6 to 8 million diabetics in the US, and about 40% were Type 1s. By the late 80s, that number had doubled, although as the nineties transpired, the percentage of Type 2s to 1s became higher. So a decade later you figure there have to be at least 20 million cases in the US,and if only %25 are type 1s, than at least 5 million of us. Strangely, a few years ago, when they announced the spleen/transplanted beta cell location results, CBS’s Good Morning show’s web page stated there were about 1 million diabetics in the US(!), with no breakdown between types. I’ve seen similar figures elswhere. Notice how the numbers regarding normal blood sugars have been fluctuating over the last decade. When I became a diabetic in 1974, I was given a book by my Dr. on managing diabetes, which stated that normal blood sugar ranged from 90mg/dl to 120mg/dl. That has remained my working definition for ‘normal’ ever since. After the advent of Humulin, and never before, Drs started telling me that those number varied widely, and perhaps they do up to 10 points either way, but now you see things like this: At the clinic where I worked, we sent out samples to a private laboratory. When they returned, their assay sheet contained, in addition to the results, a range representing normal for comparison. For blood sugar, the range was 65mg/dl to 130mg/dl. Anyone calling 65 normal is asking for trouble. In the old days, I’d have been in shock at least by the time it dropped below 80. It’s only because of the widespread hypoglycemia unawareness, which I know you’re familiar with, Jim, that they think they can con us into believing the insulin is acting properly and such low sugars are ‘normal.’ Accurate hard data is becoming increasingly difficult to find and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence. Mike