Diabetes No More? | Eugenization.

In likely the most exciting health news of the year, it appears that there is hope for diabetes sufferers (from Canada, no less). Read about it here:

Diabetes breakthrough.

For a long time, it was thought that type 1 diabetes was a completely different animal than type 2, for the sheer reason that type 2 seemed to “brought on” by poor dietary choices, whereas one was consigned to type 1 diabetes because they “were born with it.” In uncovering what appears to be the primary disease pathway of type 1 diabetes (via nervous system dysfunction!), these Toronto scientists are literally rewriting the book on diabetes.

Not to mention that they can make diabetes symptoms disappear almost instantly (in lab mice, at least).

So what’s the mystery cure? Well, it appears you can inject capsaicin (the compound that makes peppers spicy) into the pancreatic sensory nerves, shutting them down. This caused the lab mice’s pancrei to begin secreting insulin normally. The scientists also isolated an unknown neuropeptide “substance P” that seems to be the key in restoring normal pancreatic function. The article states that some of the lab mice have been producing insulin normally for four months on a single injection.

It certainly is a preferable solution to the problem than a life-long dependence on insulin injections and enevitable organ failure.

In the meantime, prevention (in the cause of type 2 diabetes) is still the best medicine. By curbing intake of products containing high-fructose corn syrup, reducing consumption of refined, highly processed foods, and regularly exercising (*ahem strength training), one can go a long way in preventing the onset of type 2 diabetes.

Those wacky Canadians.