Hm, 5 year old journal, with the editor board, funding and half of the authors all from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but significant hospital contribution. I remain skeptical of the headline but hopeful of the science.

And it will be provided for free to anyone who needs it, right? Right?

'Further studies are needed for validation.' Understatement of the year

Type 2, since the article doesn't say.

New trade restrictions coming soon on Chinese pharmaceuticals.

Curing diabetes is not in the shareholders' best interests.

So this is neat. Potentially life changing for some type 2 diabetics, but that depends because some t2 diabetics are not failing to make enough insulin, they're just no longer sensitive to it at a level that makes it functional for them. I suppose it's possible that this therapy could cause them to grow enough islet β cells to overcome their lack of sensitivity, but (and I'm a type 1, not a type 2, so maybe my info is incorrect here) that lack of sensitivity can grow with further exposure to insulin making this a stop-gap at best for those cases absent other therapies.

...and with all of that said, being able to regrow islet β cells has never really been the problem for type 1 diabetes. You can regrow all the islet β cells you'd like and it's not going to cure the underlying immune disease that has caused your immune system to kill off all of your islet β cells to begin with. Unless you can figure out why t1 diabetes causes one's own immune system to go psycho killer on their islet β cells, you've done nothing to "cure" diabetes. Without being able to suppress that impulse for your immune system to murder your own cells, any ability to replace the islet β cells is going to be temporary at best, and probably a waste on the whole.

My brother in law is a "cured" type 1 diabetic, by virtue of his having had a kidney replacement and being on immune suppressing drugs for that. Since they were already replacing the kidney and he was going to have to take immune system suppression medications for that, they also just replaced his pancreas at the same time and the suppression of his immune system has allowed the new pancreas to thrive and continue to make insulin. Easy-peasy. The only trade-off is that he is super immunocompromised and can be killed by common colds, so not a great strategy in general.

big if true

Destroy corporate healthcare by curing diabetes.

presses X to Doubt

If this were true, I wouldn’t be finding out about it on Lemmy

It’s sad to see USA so shackled by pure capitalism that it starts to lose its scientific edge left and right while drooling libs jerk off to the big pharma freedom of unrestrained gains. Still believing they have a chance for a piece from the cake if only they squeeze their cheeks a little harder.

Oh crap! If this is true then avoid spending a ton of money in insulin supplies each year could give an actual reason to politicians for reducing the healthcare state budget, which they normally do at every occasion just without a proper explanation... I don't know if my mind is ready for rationality in politics /s

idk sounds a bit sus

Why is everyone online so incredulous of this breakthrough? Is it just Sinophobia or are there reasons to doubt Chinese medical findings?