Diabetes, much like a lot of other conditions and diseases, is one that that has a lot of prevalence in contemporary society. It seems as though more and more individuals are developing diabetes, yet despite an increase in the occurrence of this condition, there hasn’t been a whole lot of progress in terms of determining how to treat it.
But, there is some progressive news pertaining to the topic. According to an article from The Good News Network, Canadian scientists, thanks to mice, may have discovered a cure.
“Scientists at the University of Alberta just cured diabetes in mice, opening the floodgates for research on adapting this cure for humans.
“The potential cure is a landmark moment in preventing the growing prevalence of diabetes in our society, a disease which, according to WHO, burdens 422 million people worldwide.
“The process involves a stem cell application that reverse-engineers insulin islets out of blood cells—this cured mice of the disease.
“The Edmonton Protocol involved using islet cells from organ transplants, but required powerful anti-rejection medication. The new stem cell process uses the patient’s own cells so rejection is impossible,” the article explains.
The article goes on to detail how a group of volunteers have created a campaign, “22 by 22,” in hopes of raising 22 million dollars by the year 2022 to go towards making this procedure accessible to humans. Further, if this treatment happens to become available to humans by 2022, it would mark the 100-year anniversary of Canadian Frederick Banting using insulin to treat diabetes.
Considering I am Canadian, I may be a little biased in saying that apparently us Canucks know what we’re doing when it comes to the treatment of diabetes, and I’m pretty proud of the advancements and findings Canadians have made in this realm of the medical world. Let’s hope that this groundbreaking procedure can be used to help people overcome this disease sooner rather than later.
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