this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
128 points (97.8% liked)

News

30790 readers
3172 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
admiralpatrick@lemmy.world
jordanlund@lemmy.world
128
People With Severe Diabetes Are Cured in Small Trial of New Drug (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by who@feddit.org to c/news@lemmy.world
11 comments fedilink hide all child comments
all 14 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] elbucho@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Well... it's not a cure. Not really. People with type I diabetes have a disorder where their immune system attacks their islet cells in their pancreas. These cells are what produce insulin. This therapy replaces some of the cells that they've lost, but it doesn't stop their bodies from attacking those cells again. The way they're doing that is by having the patients take immune-suppressing drugs forever, basically.

The problem with this is that there's currently no way to target immune-suppressing drugs to say: "Hey, just stop attacking your own cells, but continue doing everything else an immune system is supposed to do." By suppressing the immune system with these drugs, the patients are at an elevated risk of disease and cancer. And that's forever. Or, at least until we figure out a better way to do it.

Still, it is a really cool therapy, in that they were able to direct the maturation of stem cells into insulin-producing islet cells, and they were able to successfully home those to the correct location. It's huge progress, even if it isn't actually a cure.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The problem with this is that there’s currently no way to target immune-suppressing drugs to say: “Hey, just stop attacking your own cells, but continue doing everything else an immune system is supposed to do

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergen_immunotherapy

Allergen immunotherapy, also known as desensitization or hypo-sensitization, is a medical treatment for environmental allergies (such as insect bites) and asthma.[1][2] Immunotherapy involves exposing people to larger and larger amounts of allergens in an attempt to change the immune system's response.[1]

We do have some limited ability to "train" at least some aspects of the immune system not to attack certain things. I've no idea whether that approach can be used for something like this.

[–] elbucho@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

No - this is something completely different, unfortunately. Allergen response is mediated by T-helper type 2 (T~H~2) cells, while autoimmune disorders like diabetes occur through a T-helper type 1 (T~H~1) pathway.

With allergens, the foreign body will bind to antigen receptors on professional antigen presenting cells (usually dendritic cells), which will then present the bound antigen to T~H~2 cells. These will then release a particular type of chemical called cytokines that will signal the B cells to produce a shit load of IgE antibodies tailored for the particular molecular pattern identified. The IgE will bind to the antigen and also to basophils and mast cells, which will secrete a bunch of chemicals, including histamines. This is what causes you to get all itchy. It's also what causes swelling (such as when someone with a peanut allergy feels their throat closing up when they find out their snack had peanuts in it).

With Type 1 Diabetes, T~H~1 cells will recognize patterns on the surface of your islet cells, and will then release a different set of cytokines that will attract cytotoxic T cells (T~C~) to the area. These will bind to the surface of the islet cells, and will release a cocktail of chemicals that will kill the cell.

The mechanism by which allergen immunotherapy works is that it slowly trains your immune system to shift from a T~H~2-dominated response to a T~H~1-dominated response for that particular molecular pattern. This means that your body will treat the foreign substance as more of an invading pathogen (like a bacteria, for example) than an allergen, so there will not be the huge release of IgE antibodies, and consequently, far fewer mast cells and basophils releasing histamines. The precise mechanism of how this works is too complicated for this discussion, but suffice it to say we're dealing with a completely different biological pathway than with self / non-self recognition, like what's going on with autoimmune disorders.

[–] OldManBOMBIN@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

And in upcoming news: New diabetes drug breaks records for being most expensive drug on the market for treating diabetes.

Or

Pharmaceutical companies say, "What diabetes drug?"

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Im not sure if I consider these type of things to be drugs "stem cell-based infusion"

[–] SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's a therapy, to be sure.

Looks like rejection drugs cost just as much as insulin pump therapy with a cgm, if you omit the initial cost of the pump.

More users of anti rejection drugs could drive the cost down, if the makers don't decide to manufacture limited supplies.

[–] redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 weeks ago

This comment is the last straw for me replaying Deus Ex. Never thought I would live to see the game be so relevant.

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Didn't Cuba already come out with this?

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Looked it up, they created a novel treatment for foot ulcers caused by diabetes.