Is a Cure for Diabetes Within Reach?
Background
In December, 2007 a very enticing study out of Toronto University was published in the medical journal Cell and spread like wildfire across the internet as an article titled "A Cure for Diabetes May be Close!"
The Original Article
The original article was nothing less than incredible. It described how lab mice that had been given type 1 diabetes were cured within 24 hours of receiving an injection of capsaicin, (the main active compound in chili peppers); the capsaicin was injected directly into the pancreas. As a result of the capsaicin injection, the mice started to produce insulin (type 1 diabetics do not produce insulin).
Further Research
Upon further research scientists confirmed that the nerves surrounding insulin-producing islets secrete neuropeptides, and are crucial to the proper functioning of the islets. Researchers were able to prove that in the diabetic mice and rodents, they were not producing enough of the neuropeptides and it caused stress on the insulin producing islets.
So resear neuropeptide named “substance p” was injected into the cells of the pancreas. The inflammation caused by the lack of insulin disappeared and the mice and rodents were diabetic free. Some of the lab mice and rodents remained diabetic free for at least four months after being given only one injection.
This study was directed more towards type 2 diabetics; however, the study of neuropeptides implicated that type 2 diabetes was simply a component of type 1 diabetes, meaning that the treatment could possibly work for both type 1 and type 2 diabetics.
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