Potential Breakthough In Type I Diabetes Research

At work, I typically receive a bunch of these links to WebMD and stories about what is going on in the world of clinical research. This article today really caught my eye, probably because I myself am a Type I (Insulin-Dependent) Diabetic.

It has long been believed that Type I Diabetes was an auto-immune malfunction where the body's immune system mistakingly saw Islet Cells as foreign substances and as a result destroyed them. This recent research being done on mice in Canada, however, may bring research in a new direction.

Apparently, they found that a specific neurotransmitter was "different" in mice which had Type I Diabetes as compared to those without Diabetes. These chemicals are transmitted by specific neurons denoted as TRPV1 neurons. These diabetic mice had very weak chemical signals being transmitted by these neurons. They found that by altering the levels of these chemicals, the mice would in many cases become Diabetes Free!

Of course they still need to do a lot more research on this, but if these findings are true it could mean a HUGE break in Diabetes research. I am hoping that they can find a correlation in humans as well.

The funny thing with me is that I am the only one in my family lineage with Diabetes. NOBODY else in my family tree has the disease so the fact that I got it seems odd. My family does, however, have a great bevy of neurological disorders. It would then make quite a bit of sense if Diabetes develops due to a problem in the nervous system. I'm really hoping this is true as it would be incredible to make a discovery like this.

EDIT: Sorry. Had to remove the link because it may have linked to my company's servers. The source of the story is;

SOURCES: Razavi, R. Cell, Dec. 15, 2006; vol 127: pp 1123-1135. Bour-Jordan, H. and Bluestone, J. Cell, Dec. 15, 2006; vol 127: pp 1123-1135. News release, The Hospital for Sick Children.