Diabetes is a chronic, incurable disease that is triggered when the body is no longer able to properly use glucose, which is an essential "fuel" for its function. In this case, poor absorption of glucose by the cells leads to its accumulation in the blood and then in the urine. Knowing that a high concentration of sugar in the blood can lead to serious complications in the functioning of several organs.
This quite ordinary vaccine would hide a secret
Nearly a century after its development, the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine (commonly known as BCG) continues to impress scientists with the huge impact it can have on the human immune system. In its latest studies, a team at the Massachusetts General Hospital Immunobiology Laboratory showed how the bacteria in the vaccine are able to restore normal blood sugar levels in people with type 1 diabetes, all the while increasing the appetite of white blood cells.
Previous work had already suggested that one of the causes contributing to type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack its own insulin-producing cells, would be insufficient exposure. to elements that our immune system is normally supposed to target and evacuate.
Lead author of the study, Dr. Denise Faustman, said that lifestyle changes and referrals to cleaner, more urban settings are both involved in the evolution of diabetes and in the development of diabetes. increase in its incidence. She says that low exposure to certain microbes as a result of modern sanitation, smaller families, cleaner homes etc ... was responsible for a real change in the functioning of our current metabolism.
Stimulation of the immune system by introducing bacteria
The BCG vaccine, supposed to protect against tuberculosis by introducing a line of innocuous bacteria closely related to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, would have the side effect, unexpected and extraordinarily beneficial to boost the immune system in its entirety. Other research has even proven the effectiveness of this vaccine against various kinds of cancers and parasitic infections.
Dr. Faustman's group of researchers also conducted a clinical trial in which two adult diabetics received the BCG vaccine four weeks apart, while two other two injections of placebo were made. Four years later, the average blood glucose level of the first subjects had dropped by more than 18%, reaching almost the normal level, without any risk of hypoglycaemia.
Another study by the same team, published in June, found that subjects kept this drop in sugar for an additional four years of follow-up, during which time those who received a placebo went instead in the opposite direction. After extensive blood sampling, Dr. Faustman and his team were able to understand the underlying epigenetic mechanism behind the effect of the vaccine. They discovered that BCG induces the introduction of cells into a process called "aerobic glycolysis" helping to increase the consumption of persistent glucose in the bloodstream due to a lack of insulin.
The team's latest findings shed light on another part of the mystery of immune metabolism, which is that white blood cells of patients with type 1 diabetes consume less blood glucose than non-diabetics. An equivalent rate was found in patients with low microbial exposure.
In conclusion, Dr. Faustman says, "BCG needs sources of energy found in white blood cells and thus increases the use of sugar in the body. This vaccine changes a depressed and sugar-deficient lymphatic system into a much more efficient process. This leads to a state comparable to that of people without diabetes. "
For the scientist and her team, such discoveries can only pave the way for future, larger studies on the treatment of type 1 diabetes with the TB vaccine.
