Diabetes vaccine to be tested

Main Category: Diabetes
Article Date: 14 Dec 2004 - 10:00 PDT

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A vaccine designed to treat patients with Type 1 diabetes is to be tested on humans for the first time.

The Times newspaper reports that scientists will begin the trials on 18 patients with Type 1 diabetes in August this year, prompting hopes that a cure for the disease could be widely available within ten years.

The new vaccine could act both as a vaccine and a cure, meaning those with a family risk of diabetes could be vaccinated to prevent it developing.

There are currently 300,000 sufferers of Type 1 diabetes in the UK, who require daily injections of synthetic insulin and the number of sufferers under the age of five has increased dramatically over the past 20 years.

UK researchers are also planning to investigate the use of stem cells, organ transplants, cell regeneration and advanced drug therapies to help encourage the human body to naturally produce insulin.

Georgina Slack, head of research at Diabetes UK, is optimistic about the development of the treatment.

"A hundred years ago Type 1 diabetes was a death sentence," she said.

"Now we are seeing new approaches which are improving the chances of a cure."
http://www.hda-online.org.uk