A tuberculosis vaccine that has been in use for 90 years may help reverse Type 1 diabetes and eliminate the life-long need for insulin injections, results from an early study by Harvard University researchers suggest.
?These patients have been told their pancreases were dead,? said Denise Faustman, director of Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital?s immunobiology laboratory, who led the study. ?We can take those people, give them a very low dose twice and see their pancreases kick in and start to make small amounts of insulin.?
Faustman and her colleagues at Massachusetts General inBoston are working to get the vaccine to market. After their early findings in studies with mice, she said they tried to interest every major drugmaker in developing the vaccine as a possible cure for diabetes. All told her there wasn?t enough money to be made in a cure that used an inexpensive, generically available vaccine, Faustman said.
The vaccine, a weakened form of the tuberculosis bacteria, stimulates production of TNF, a cell-signaling protein that plays a role in cell death. With more TNF, the body can attack those harmful immune cells while leaving the rest of the body?s defenses intact. The vaccine is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for tuberculosis though it isn?t generally recommended for use in the U.S. The vaccine also is approved to fight bladder cancer.
Study Results
In the study, researchers administered two doses of the BCG vaccine to three patients who had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The patients were followed for 20 weeks and two of the three were found to have an increase in the death of the insulin-harming cells and a rise in elevation in C-peptide levels, suggesting the production of insulin.
?These patients have been told their pancreases were dead,? Faustman said. ?We can take those people, give them a very low dose twice and see their pancreases kick in and start to make small amounts of insulin.?
Originally Posted by Frisch
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