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Brain Cancer - Rev. Jonathon Kennedy   Breast Cancer - Angela Adler Breast Cancer - Elaine J. Douglas   Type I Diabetes - Erika Burr Diaphragmatic Hernia - Nancy   Heart Surgery - Jeff Salzwedel Multiple Sclerosis - Ramona M. & Barbara W.   Parkinson’s Disease - Gordon Coggshall

WHAT IS DIABETES? Type 1 diabetes is also called insulin-dependent diabetes. It is an autoimmune disease, in which the body’s white blood cells kill islet cells that make insulin in the pancreas. ERIKA BURR When Erika Burr was diagnosed with type I diabetes at the age of 5, she thought all it meant was that she could not be an airplane pilot. Today, thanks to groundbreaking animal research into normalizing blood sugar levels, Erika is living a life more full than she had ever dreamed as the busy mother of two young sons, one of whom has diabetes. "When I was pregnant with my first child, I was told the odds were one in 100 that he would be born with diabetes," she said. "Diabetes did not run in my family, and I always exercised, ate well, and had a healthy mental attitude. When our son was diagnosed, it was very difficult. He is now five years old, checks his blood sugar four times a day, and has insulin injections twice a day." The complications of untreated diabetes can be severe, including kidney disease, blackouts, and bleeding in the retina. Diabetics like Erika are anxiously awaiting the outcome of research being done by Dr. Kenneth Ward of Portland’s Good Samaritan Hospital, who has developed an implant being tested in dogs which automatically and continuously measures glucose. "It is expensive, inconvenient and painful for diabetics to have to monitor their own blood sugar as recommended at least four or five times a day," said Dr. Ward. "We hope that the eventual use of a glucose monitoring implant for humans the size of a quarter placed on the abdomen or forearm will be able to eliminate the complications related to erratic blood sugar levels." Dr. Ward adds that preliminary testing in foxhounds has proved extremely successful. "Each animal receives a small glucose sensor with a receiver implanted under its skin, and blood is drawn from its leg to test how accurate the sensor is transmitting information about the blood sugar levels," he said. "The dogs are only tested for two to six months. After that time, we take out both devices, stitch them up and make sure they are healed, and adopt them out to loving families." For persons with diabetes like Erika, this type of animal research offers tremendous hope for the future. "When you have loved one with life-threatening disease, you always hope for new treatments," said Erika. "One day, perhaps in our son’s lifetime, this disease can be cured." This destruction leaves people with high blood sugar. Consequently, they depend on insulin injections for their survival. Type 2 (non-insulin dependent) diabetes is a disorder characterized by increased blood sugar (glucose) and is often associated with abnormal blood lipids, hypertension, and accelerated atherosclerosis. Whereas Type 1 diabetes usually develops in younger people, Type 2 diabetes most often manifest itself in people over age 40 that are overweight. It can be controlled with diet and exercise. Complications such as blindness, kidney failure, loss of limbs, heart disease, and stroke can occur in patients both young and old. Do people with diabetes need animal research? Prior to the 1920’s, Type 1 diabetes was a hopeless disease. In 1921, insulin was discovered in the pancreas of dogs. Methods were soon developed to extract insulin from beef pancreas for treatment of diabetic patients. Today millions of people with diabetes have been given the gift of life through insulin therapy. But insulin is not a cure. Complications may occur, especially in children, in whom diabetes is the most common chronic disease. Although rapid advances have been made in the study of human insulin-dependent diabetes, research on diabetes still relies on animal models. The inheritance, cause and prevention of human diabetes are still unsolved problems. The University of Massachusetts Medical Center has been designated a Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center by the National Institutes of Health. Investigators there are working with the so-called BB-W rat, an animal model in which the disease is both clinically and biologically similar to human insulin-dependent diabetes. Because the BB-W rat spontaneously develops diabetes, it has afforded investigators the opportunity to study the early phase of the development of the disease, as well as possible methods of prevention. Animal research at other institutions uses rats, rabbits, and dogs to study long-term complications of diabetes particularly those involving blood vessels. By using animal models to understand the mechanisms of these vascular complications, we may be able to prevent them, or at least to minimize their consequences in children and adults. Researchers are defining the genes that make a person susceptible to Type 1 diabetes. They are also studying both the white blood cells that kill islet cells and molecules in the islets that are the targets for killing. They are advancing the knowledge needed to transplant and even to make insulin-producing islet cells. Research with humans and dogs at the John Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore continues on the programmable implantable medication system (PIMS). This surgically implanted insulin pump automatically delivers a special type of insulin and allows patients to adjust, in consultation with their physician, the amount of insulin they receive through a remote control similar to those used for television sets. Animal research is critical to the understanding of diabetes. One can only speculate as to the cost of the reduced quality of life due to blindness, kidney failure, and other complications without this research. Reset alone offers the hope of preventing diabetes in the not-too-distant future.

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