Saturday, September 22, 2012

Could Lettuce Cure Diabetes?

Would you believe that the lettuce you are eating in your dinner salad could possibly be a cure for Type 1 diabetes? In about five years, a diabetic could be swallowing a capsule containing ground up lettuce with insulin once or twice a week for a few weeks and then be cured and not have to inject insulin for the rest of his life.
Let's start at the beginning. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in young adults and children. Diabetes does not permit the body to manufacture insulin, which is needed to convert starches, sugar and other food into energy. This disease can bring on many problems such as blindness, foot and skin problems, and heart and kidney disease. Watching their blood sugar levels is a number one priority for patients with this form of the disease.
According to the American Diabetes Association, about 20.8 million children and adults or about 7 percent of the population have type 1 or 2 diabetes in the United States. The National Changing Diabetes Program released last month that the number of Americans with diabetes is estimated to double by 2025. During a congressional briefing, the Mathematical Policy Research, Inc. reported that one of every eight federal health care dollars, $79.7 billion out of $645 billion, is spent on care for diabetics.
The current treatment for type 1 diabetes entails putting insulin into the bloodstream usually by injection. Patients can also inhale the insulin or wear a pump that delivers the insulin into the bloodstream. Unfortunately, the insulin does not cure the diabetes, it only treats it. Patients have to take insulin for the rest of their lives. People experiencing this disease may have a cure and it could come from lettuce, according to Henry Daniell, Ph.D., a molecular biologist at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida.
According to Dr. Daniell, a lettuce leaf is put into a machine and then it is injected with a human gene for insulin. The leaf is in effect creating human insulin. The lettuce is grown in the lab. The lettuce is then ground up and put into a capsule. Dr. Daniell considers the lettuce to be genetically modified. Every solitary cell in the lettuce leaf contains 10,000 copies of the insulin gene. The plant cell walls are made of cellulose to prevent the insulin from degrading. Insulin is little by little sent into the bloodstream when the bacteria living in the intestine slowly break down the cell walls. This generates an immune reaction in the body and trains it to release its own insulin. This is a completely new theory and a new way to use this oral delivery system to cure this immune disorder. Dr. Daniell has been working to make his technique perfect for the past 20 years.
Dr. Daniell has tested this concept on mice. All the diabetic mice had normal blood sugar levels and created insulin after eight weeks, even after they quit ingesting the lettuce powder. He had given the lettuce powder to the mice once a week and the results were amazing.
Patients would only have to take the pill for weeks, not months or years according to Dr. Daniell. Technically, they would no longer have diabetes once their immune system reacts to the pill. Additionally, since this therapy is based on plants, it would only cost pennies to produce. The mice had no side effects from the treatment.
The next step is to test the lettuce capsules in humans and that is expected to start in the next year. Dr. Daniell said his research team has offers from formal partners and the University of Central Florida is consulting with them to start a phase 1 clinical trial. Dr. Daniell is expecting to see the same result in humans as they found in the trials on mice.
Prior results and these results signify that insulin capsules possibly in the future might be used to prevent diabetes before the symptoms appear and even treat the disease in its later stages. It could also assist patients that have multiple sclerosis, type 2 diabetes and some forms of arthritis.
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