Treatment with a monoclonal antibody, a new type of therapy, may help preserve insulin-making abilities in people who have recently developed type 1 diabetes.New European research shows that just one six-day course of the experimental treatment resulted in improvements lasting 18 months.Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease caused by T lymphocyte cells targeting and destroying insulin-producing beta-cells in the pancreas. About five percent of all diabetics carry the type 1 form of the disease, which is usually diagnosed in childhood or adolescence.The success of the new therapy “clearly shows that our understanding of the basic science is beginning to translate into clinical application,” said Dr. Stuart Weiss, a clinical assistant professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine in New York City. “If the treatment is started before the greater portion of insulin-producing cells are destroyed, there can be a significant delay in the progression of beta-cell destruction, and that’s very exciting.""This is the start of a fast forward to begin to talk about the possibility of stopping the progression of an autoimmune disease, and about reversing the disease,” added Dr. Richard Insel, executive vice president of research at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which sponsored the trial.Eventually, Insel said, this type of therapy, combined with a method of regenerating the body’s insulin-making abilities, might lead to a cure.The study was led by researchers at Brussels Free University and is published in the June 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
