Post by Swamp Gas on Dec 13, 2004 13:05:23 GMT -5
New vaccine trials bring hope of cure for diabetes: report
Sun Dec 12, 7:14 PM ET Health - AFP
LONDON (AFP) - A vaccine against the most serious form of diabetes is to be tested on humans for the first time, raising the prospect that a cure could be widely available within 10 years, The Times reported.
Eighteen sufferers of type 1 diabetes, which usually appears before the age of 40, will begin the trial in August, the daily newspaper reported, citing scientists from the University of Bristol in southwest England, and King's College London.
"If the principal works, we will then want to conduct a further 18-month full clinical trial," Colin Dayan, a consultant senior lecturer in medicine at Bristol, told The Times.
There are 300,000 sufferers of type 1 diabetes, which develops when the pancreas stops producing insulin, in Britain. They need daily injections of synthetic insulin and risk blindness, loss of limbs and death. The disease has increased four-fold among the under-fives in the past 20 years. Type 2 usually appears in older people, particularly the overweight, but is also affecting the young with the increase in childhood obesity.
The vaccine, being produced by Clinalfa, an offshoot of the pharmaceutical giant Merck, contains a molecule identical to part of the insulin-producing islet cells. When added to human blood, it generates protective cells that block the aggressive white blood cells responsible for destroying the islets.
"The beginning of human trials marks one of the most significant advances against the disease since the widespread prescription of insulin began in the 1920s. This has been the only way to treat diabetes for the past 80 years," The Times reported.
Sun Dec 12, 7:14 PM ET Health - AFP
LONDON (AFP) - A vaccine against the most serious form of diabetes is to be tested on humans for the first time, raising the prospect that a cure could be widely available within 10 years, The Times reported.
Eighteen sufferers of type 1 diabetes, which usually appears before the age of 40, will begin the trial in August, the daily newspaper reported, citing scientists from the University of Bristol in southwest England, and King's College London.
"If the principal works, we will then want to conduct a further 18-month full clinical trial," Colin Dayan, a consultant senior lecturer in medicine at Bristol, told The Times.
There are 300,000 sufferers of type 1 diabetes, which develops when the pancreas stops producing insulin, in Britain. They need daily injections of synthetic insulin and risk blindness, loss of limbs and death. The disease has increased four-fold among the under-fives in the past 20 years. Type 2 usually appears in older people, particularly the overweight, but is also affecting the young with the increase in childhood obesity.
The vaccine, being produced by Clinalfa, an offshoot of the pharmaceutical giant Merck, contains a molecule identical to part of the insulin-producing islet cells. When added to human blood, it generates protective cells that block the aggressive white blood cells responsible for destroying the islets.
"The beginning of human trials marks one of the most significant advances against the disease since the widespread prescription of insulin began in the 1920s. This has been the only way to treat diabetes for the past 80 years," The Times reported.
