New Way to Battle Diabetes?
Researchers at the University of Miami are on the brink of a clinical trial that could, if successful, revolutionize the treatment of diabetes.
Dr. Norma S. Kenyon and her colleagues have discovered a way to transplant insulin-secreting pancreatic islet cells without the use of immunosuppressive drugs that impede the islets’ functioning and leave the transplant recipient susceptible to infections and cancer.
The key to the transplant is a monoclonal antibody called anti-CD154. Anti-CD154 blocks the rejection process targeted at the immune cells without harming the islet cells themselves and without hindering immunity to infectious agents. Best of all, the treatment can be halted after a few months.
Kenyon and her colleagues at Miami’s Diabetes Research Institute will report next month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on studies in six monkeys whose pancreases were surgically removed. Grossly mismatched islet cells were transplanted into the livers of the animals, accompanied by doses of anti-CD154 before and after the transplant, and later at one-month intervals.
The islet cells thrived and took over normal pancreas function in the animals, which needed no insulin injections. In three of the animals, the anti-CD154 was halted after a year and, a year later, there are still no signs of rejection.
“As an immunologist who has worked in this field for 20 years, this is the most promising thing I have ever seen,” Kenyon said. “But as the mother of a diabetic daughter, I don’t want to raise hopes too high.”
The group has approval from the university’s bioethics board to begin clinical trials of anti-CD154 in humans, but Kenyon would not say when trials will start. One remaining problem, she noted, is procuring an adequate supply of islet cells.
New Treatment Seeks Out Hidden HIV
Researchers have used immune therapy to successfully flush the AIDS virus out of one of its hiding places in the body, a feat that brings researchers closer to their eventual goal of curing HIV infections. Cocktails of AIDS drugs have been very successful in reducing blood concentrations of HIV to virtually zero, but the virus remains hidden in protected locations in the body, including so-called memory T cells, lymph nodes, and perhaps other sites as well.
It’s difficult to attack HIV in memory T cells because the cells remain dormant for long periods, shielding the virus from chemotherapy. Tae-Wook Chun and colleagues at the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases attempted to clear the virus by activating the memory T cells with compounds produced by the immune system, especially interleukin-2.
They treated 12 HIV-positive patients with drug cocktails alone and 14 with cocktails plus interleukin-2. After 20 months, the team reported in the June Nature Medicine, the patients who received interleukin-2 had lower overall levels of HIV. Three showed no trace of HIV in their memory T cells and two had no virus in their lymph nodes as well.
Creams Don’t Affect Size of Thighs
The only thing thigh-reducing creams actually reduce is the amount of money in your wallet, according to new research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the first controlled study of the creams, the researchers enrolled 11 women who applied a thigh-reducing cream to one thigh and a common moisturizing cream to the other. The team measured the circumference of the thighs at the beginning and the end of the six-week study.
Dr. Bonita Marks and her colleagues reported Thursday at a Seattle meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine that neither thigh showed a reduction in size in any of the participants.
FDA Urges Ban on Certain Blood Donors
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended Wednesday that Americans who have visited England for periods of six months or longer since 1980 should not be permitted to donate blood. The panel fears that people who ate British beef may have picked up the prions that cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the so-called mad cow disease, and could pass it on if they were to donate blood.
If the ban included all such Americans, it would eliminate about 2.2% of all blood collected, according to the American Red Cross.
Meningitis Rate Is Higher in Freshmen
College freshmen, especially those who live in dormitories, face a higher risk of a potentially fatal bacterial infection than others in their age group, a study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates. As the CDC and college health officials conduct further research to look for the reasons, they recommend that all students consider getting vaccinated against meningococcal meningitis.
Dr. Michael Bruce, an epidemiologist at the CDC, reported that a study of 83 reported meningitis cases involving college students from September 1998 through May 1999 indicated a rate among freshmen of 1.4 cases per 100,000, rising sharply to 3.8 cases per 100,000 among freshmen living in dormitories.
That compares with a rate of one case per 100,000 for 18- to 22-year-olds nationally, and a slightly lower rate of 0.7 cases per 100,000 for college undergraduates over-all.
A $60 vaccine would prevent about three-fourths of the cases that occur among college students, said Dr. MarJeanne Collins, director of health services at the University of Pennsylvania, at the annual meeting of the American College Health Assn. on June 1.
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Medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II can be reached by e-mail at thomas.maugh@latimes.com.
