BCG May Reverse Type 1 Diabetes

Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) is defined by Wikipedia as a vaccine against tuberculosis. It’s prepared from the strain of weakened live bovine tuberculosis bacillus, Mycobacterium bovis, that has lost its virulence in human by being specially cultured in an artificial medium for years.
The bacilli has retained enough strong antigenicity to become a somewhat effective vaccine for the prevention of tuberculosis.

Dr. Denise Faustman Phase 1 trial studies. Test the possibility of using the BCG, a generic drug to possibly reverse Type 1 diabetes after their studies in mice were successful. She hopes to replicate some of the results from these studies.

The on-going studies being carried out on Phase 1 is the safety of the BCG vaccination to individuals with Type 1 diabetes. The studies were carried out where they look for T-cells changes and how reliable the blood tests to tract T-cells that cause disease from their participants. The test results are great and their testing is almost complete.

In Phase 11, they will study the dosage and how often BCG vaccination is needed to benefit from it. Unlike many newly developed drugs, BCG has been studied and used for a long time thus allowing the public to be familiar with it. Studies showed that this treatment is harmless to healthy T-cells. It only damage the disease resistant T-cells.

In their BCG studies with mice, raising the level of Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) would damage the autoreactive T-cells. This in turn will let the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas to restore and make insulin. When the level of TNF is raised it also re-establishes a regular immune system.

The safety of this drug has been proven because of its use as therapy for other diseases. Small amounts of BCG vaccine is used to treat tuberculosis. It is also used as a therapy for bladder cancer in larger dosages.

There are on-going projects on finding ways to reverse Type 1 diabetes, studying new and existing drugs. Advances in technology may also contribute to finding ways to eliminate the disease.

To your health,
Alma
http://www.diabetestomorrow.com