The Future of Diabetes

Exciting New Discovery!

Professor Andy Sewell of Cardiff University 

The Medical Sector is abuzz with the latest news! Scientists claim to have uncovered a new evidence which is hoped to eventually help diagnose and prevent type 1 diabetes.

Professor Andy Sewell of Cardiff University an expert in human T-cells, reports to have witnessed T-cells destroying insulin-producing cells. 

During a recent experiment, Prof Sewell, along with diabetes experts from King's College, isolated a T-cell froma patient with type-1 diabetes and watched for the first time the process of destroying insulin-producing cells by T-cells.. 

"This is a breakthrough and tells us where we can now focus in the future," Professor Sewell was heard speaking on BBC Radio Wales.

This is indeed a breakthrough since most people who have type 1Diabetes already have it long before they are diagnosed of it.

"Type one diabetes is a result of the body's own immune system attacking and destroying the cells in the pancreas that manufactures the hormone insulin," he said.

"The mechanism by which the body attacks its own insulin producing cells in the pancreas is not fully understood".

"Insulin controls blood sugar levels and a lack of insulin is fatal if untreated.

"Our findings show how killer T-cells might play an important role in autoimmune disease like diabetes and we've secured the first ever glimpse of the mechanism by which killer T-cells can attack our own body cells to cause disease."

Professor Mark Peakman from the National Institute for Health Research at King's College, London said that seeing killer T-cells make contact with cells that make insulin is a very enlightening sight, and that it increases mankind's understanding of how type 1 diabetes may arise.

According to him, this knowledge can be used in the future to help the medical field predict who are likely to get the disease and to develop new ways to prevent it. 

If the disease is caught before it has made much damage to the insulin-producing cells as a result of this experiment, it is an important breakthrough indeed.