Posted by Rick on October 24, 1999, at 19:01:16
In reply to Thanks Rick..., posted by Racer on October 24, 1999, at 15:48:09
You're welcome. I know from my first experience seven months ago with a fasting glucose test how easy it is for an aberrational reading (and the #@$!$%! ADA's and diabetes experts' well-intentioned but amazingly arbitrary and inflexible guidelines) to send you reeling.
(Please don't lure me onto THAT soapbox! You should have seen the nasty things I said to the didactic "Expert" of Lifescan's "Ask The Expert" feature after her umpteenth repetition of that pet phrase, "there is no such thing as 'a LITTLE diabetic...that's like being a LITTLE pregnant'". Don't they understand the concepts of continuous vs. discrete measurements; or false positives; or...uh oh, I'm getting started...)
For myself, even though my last two (of three total) official fasting glucose tests came out to 97 and 93 (compared to a diabetes defintion of two fasting readings of 126+ ... ratcheted down from the previous 140 cutoff in 1997), I sometimes veer into the "impaired" range (110-125) using fingerstick -- and even beyond 125 once or twice evry 2-3 months. Now, I've seen studies that say brand new drugs like Actos were extremely effective in stopping possible progression of impaired glucose into "official" diabetes by easing insulin resistance. It CAN'T cause hypoglycemia (assuming no other diabetes meds or insulin are used), and it has some benefits unrelated to diabetes as well. So I am thinking of trying to obtain this med, even though its FDA indication is strictly for those who have been diagnosed as diabetec (Type 2). I like the concept of prevention in the face of possible risk. Of course, I probably worry too much myself.
Anyways, pasted below is an example of the kind of "possible cure" talk that's been accelerating of late. Sorry that it ended up sqooshed (or is that squished) in the pasting process. Although they don't explicitly say so, it sounds like they're talking about insulin-dependent DB here.
Rick
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PASTED ARTICLE:British Researchers Say Closer To Diabetes Cure
02:38 a.m. Aug 19, 1999 Eastern
By David Luhnow
EDINBURGH (Reuters) - British medical researchers said Wednesday they had taken big steps toward finding an eventual cure for diabetes, a disease that affects millions worldwide and forces them to take daily insulin injections.
Researchers at several British universities have discovered a way to artificially grow and genetically modify human cells which, when transplanted into the body, would control the flow of insulin, a leading researcher said.
New funding from Britain's Juvenile Diabetes Foundation will allow a team at Aberdeen University in Scotland to carry out laboratory trials of the cells and pave the way for human testing within five years.
``This is an important development and offers a novel approach to a very different treatment to diabetes and could also help find a cure,´´ Kevin Docherty, head of molecular biology at Aberdeen University, told Reuters.
Diabetes affects some 1.5 million people in Britain and roughly 50 million people worldwide. The discovery of insulin in 1922 freed many from the disease's death sentence, but there has been little new progress since then.
Because diabetes patients cannot produce enough insulin, a vital hormone that regulates blood sugar levels, transplanting insulin-secreting cells from the pancreas has long been seen as offering a possible cure.
But the problem has always been the scarcity of donors and destruction of the cells by the body's immune system.
A major advance came when researchers at Leicester University successfully grew insulin-secreting tissue from the pancreas of children suffering a rare disease known as neonatal hypoglycemia -- a condition where too much insulin is produced.
Docherty's team at Aberdeen was then able to successfully genetically alter the cells to regulate their insulin flows.
Because the cells are made in a lab, researchers should find it easier to make them resist attack from the immune system.
``This is just one approach to finding an eventual cure, but in combination with other work being done, it holds great promise,´´ Docherty said.
The new funding, which comes from the National Lottery Charities board, was announced Tuesday.
-------> All this was put into perspective for me the other day: while spikes are rare for me (other than dawn phenomena), so I usually get more upset by them, the fact that I've been averaging about 65 lately is really more of a problem. It means that my usual insulin resistance is fluctuating...
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> Also, thanks for the information about the neurotransmitters effected by Effexor... I hadn't thought of a direct influence like that. That's probably very much involved.
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> The glucometer is fine, in fact it was just replaced and recalibrated and retested a couple of weeks ago. Part of this is that I'm seeing a diabetic now, who reminds me to check myself more frequently than I have been for a while. The wild swings that I've been having the last few weeks are new, but I'm probably more aware of them just because I'm checking rather than guessing...
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> So, now to go back to better self-care.
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> Tell me, though, what are you reading about a cure? (Not like it's of any interest to me, right?)
poster:Rick
thread:13663
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991016/msgs/13798.html