New Drug Slows Type 1 Diabetes

An experimental drug slows the course of type 1, or juvenile, diabetes and one day might prevent it altogether, researchers say.

A study in today's New England Journal of Medicine involved 80 patients recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a form of the disease in which patients can't make insulin. It usually is diagnosed in children or young adults, and it affects 1million to 2 million Americans.

Researchers in Belgium, Germany, England and France gave half the group infusions for six days of a drug that stops the immune system's destruction of beta cells in the pancreas, which make insulin.

They found that the drug preserved beta cells, so patients needed less supplemental insulin even 18 months after the treatment. Those who got a placebo continued to need increasing amounts of insulin and have fewer functioning beta cells.
Go to ADA E-News Now

Encapsulated Islet Cell Transplants Avoid Host Immune Rejection

A technology that has been under development for several years -- encapsulating islets cells with polyethylene glycol -- may soon obviate the need for immunosuppression in islet cell transplantation, according to a presentation at the American Diabetes Association's 65th Annual Scientific Sessions in San Diego, California. The net result will be effective control of blood glucose levels in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes without the danger of hypoglycemia or graft rejection, lead presenter Dr. David Scharp told Reuters Health. Dr. Scharp is chief scientific officer and executive vice president of research and development at Novocell, Inc. in Irvine California.
Taken from ADA online Diabetes E-News now

Accu-Chek® Multiclix Lancet Device

San Diego, June 11, 2005 - Today at the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions in San Diego, California, Indianapolis-based Roche Diagnostics, a leader in diabetes care products and services, exhibited its new Accu-Chek® Multiclix lancet device. The Accu-Chek Multiclix lancet device is the first lancing device with a patented, preloaded, 6-lancet drum which provides more convenience and improves safety by reducing accidental finger-sticks of handling individual lancets. With no lancets to see or handle, a patented cam-driven design, 11 different depth settings and alternate site testing, the Accu-Chek Multiclix system is the least painful testing option1.

Visit Children with Diabetes website

Help for Families without health insurance

Families without health insurance can enroll in Together Rx Access
to save money on diabetes supplies, including OneTouch Ultra and
UltraSmart systems and test strips; FreeStyle and Flash systems and
test strips; Precision Xtra systems, blood glucose test strips, and
ketone test strips; and Lantus.
Visit Together RX Access

Recall of Accusure Insulin Syringes 1cc 28 Gauge 1/2 Inch 100's.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- Huntsville, AL -- June 14, 2005 -- Qualitest Pharmaceuticals, Inc., today has issued a voluntary nationwide recall of Accusure Insulin Syringes 1cc, 28 Gauge l/2 Inch, distributed between October 2004 and June 2005. There may be 1cc syringes which are mislabeled as 1/2 cc syringes on the plastic inner wrap holding 10 individual syringes, which could potentially result in confusion by the patient or caregiver, resulting in an incorrect dose or amount being administered.

Visit FDA Recall Press Release

A new Spanish-language Diabetes web site

Diabetes Informate is a new Spanish-language web site with diabetes
information. See also Celebrities Featured On New Spanish-language
Website Share Experiences With Diabetes.
Visit: Diabetes Informate

Blood Glucose Monitoring for Athletic Competition.

Sports Corner guide Rick Philbin offers advice on Blood Glucose
Monitoring for Athletic Competition.
Go to Children with Diabetes Web Site

Insulin Cells Persist in Long-standing Diabetes

15-JUN-2005


NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In type 1 diabetes, which by definition indicates a lack of insulin production, the insulin-producing "beta" cells in the pancreas are thought to be wiped out. However, that may not be exactly the case.

The results of a new study provide some of the first evidence in humans that the pancreas continues to form beta cells even in the setting of long-standing type 1 diabetes, suggesting a possible new treatment strategy.

"The implication is that type 1 diabetes could, theoretically, be cured if we could stop the new insulin-secreting cells being destroyed," Dr. Peter C. Butler from the University of California in Los Angeles told Reuters Health. Butler presented his team's findings at the American Diabetes Association's annual meeting in San Diego.

Type 1 diabetes results when beta cells are mistakenly attacked and destroyed by the body in an autoimmune reaction. Until now, the only hope of reversing the disease seemed to be replacement of beta cells by transplantation.

Butler's team has now shown that, among 42 individuals who had type 1 diabetes for decades -- in some cases up to 60 years -- the majority (88 percent) still had detectable insulin-producing beta cells in their pancreas.

"Most interesting," Butler said, "we note that these cells have a high death rate by autoimmune destruction, implying that there must be ongoing new insulin-producing cells being formed. Therefore, type 1 diabetes may be reversible by targeted inhibition of beta cell destruction."

A lot more work lies ahead before that becomes possible. "What we do not know yet is what rate these calls are being produced or how they are being produced," Butler said. "These questions are currently being actively addressed in studies by our group, funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation."

2005 Reuters Health

Stuffed and ready to serve — the 'Staff Sergeant Thompson bear'

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Plush and cuddly, “Staff Sergeant Thompson” is going to help raise money for diabetes.

The American Diabetes Association will unveil its newest stuffed teddy bear this week at its annual conference in San Diego. Dressed in desert cammies and sporting an insulin pump, “Staff Sergeant Thompson Bear” is modeled on Sgt. 1st Class Mark Thompson (he was promoted last week — the soldier, not the bear), the 1st Infantry Division career counselor who is diabetic.

The group’s chief executive officer, Lynn Nicholas, pitched the soldier bear idea and invited Thompson to speak at the conference after reading a Stars and Stripes profile of him last fall. She said ADA had sold holiday-themed bears before, but never one modeled on a real person.

“I so often see soldiers in their desert fatigues,” Nicholas said. “I thought it would be nice to have a little bear who served in the Army.”

Thompson has been working with the bear’s designers to make sure the uniform looks right. He also will work in a booth selling the bears, which are $10 apiece. His wife, Beth, and little boy, Kyle, 2, will help him.

“I’m so looking forward to giving one to my son,” Thompson said.

For more information on the soldier and “Staff Sergeant Thompson” — or to purchase the teddy bear — see the American Diabetes Association’s Web site

By Steve Liewer, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, June 9, 2005

Stem Cell Advances May Make Moral Issue Moot

The Washington Post online:
Stem Cell Advances May Make Moral Issue Moot

By Rick Weiss

If only human embryonic stem cells could sprout anew from something other than a human embryo. Researchers could harvest them and perhaps harness their great biomedical potential without destroying what some consider to be a budding human life.

But like a low-calorie banana split or the proverbial free lunch, there is no such thing as an embryo-free embryonic stem cell.

Or is there?

In recent months, a number of researchers have begun to assemble intriguing evidence that it is possible to generate embryonic stem cells without having to create or destroy new human embryos.

The research is still young and largely unpublished, and in some cases it is limited to animal cells. Scientists doing the work also emphasize their desire to have continued access to human embryos for now. It is largely by analyzing how nature makes stem cells, deep inside days-old embryos, that these researchers are learning how to make the cells themselves.

Yet the gathering consensus among biologists is that embryonic stem cells are made, not born -- and that embryos are not an essential ingredient. That means that today's heated debates over embryo rights could fade in the aftermath of technical advances allowing scientists to convert ordinary cells into embryonic stem cells.

"That would really get around all the moral and ethical concerns," said James F. Battey, chief of the stem cell task force at the National Institutes of Health. The techniques under study qualify for federal grant support because embryos are not harmed, he noted. And eventually the work could boost the number of stem cell colonies, or lines, available for study by taxpayer-supported researchers.

The transformation of ordinary body cells into extraordinary stem cells is not a matter of alchemy but molecular biology. All human cells, be they stem or otherwise, have the same basic complement of genes. What is different about stem cells -- and what gives them their remarkable capacity to proliferate and morph into whatever kind of cell the body may need -- is the specific pattern of activity of their genes. It is all about which genes are working and which are dormant.

As cells mature during embryonic and fetal development, certain genes in those cells are switched either on or off. Depending on the new pattern of activity, each cell becomes skin, heart muscle, nerve or some other kind of specialized cell.

Now scientists are exploring methods for resetting the genetic switches inside various cells to the positions that will make them embryonic again. Both of the two major approaches now under study use existing embryonic stem cells (widely available from previously destroyed embryos and eligible for study using federal funds) to help ordinary cells become stem cells.

To read the entire article please go to the Washington Post