West Barnstable dietitian Joan Trimble talks about the latest research into type-1 diabetes in this edition of WXTK's Better Health Report.
Type 1 diabetes is a devastating autoimmune disease with no known cure, other than to take insulin for the rest of your life.
But researchers in Norway have found that there may be a way to prevent it or greatly reduce risk.
They looked at a cohort of over 155,000 babies from Norway and Denmark and found that babies who were breastfed exclusively for 6 months or in total for 12 months had a greatly reduced risk of developing Type 1 DM.
And in other news, exciting new research just published in the NEJM cited a new technique for transplanting islet cells from the pancreas to cure Type 1 DM. Researchers transplanted the islet cells into the belly of 43 year old women who now, a year later, is free from needing any insulin. They were able to take her off insulin completely after only 12 weeks..
What’s interesting about this is that they transplanted the cells into the omentum, which is an area of fatty tissue in the belly surrounding the stomach and intestines. Previous attempt to transplant islet cells into the pancreas or liver have not had good results. But they aren’t finding any issues with this new method.
Of course, this was only one patient, but if this works, it changes everything.
This is Joan Trimble wishing you wellness.