Dr. Faustman's lab is currently collecting blood samples from individuals with established Type 1 diabetes. These samples are being used to quantify the number of autoreactive T-cells and develop the adequate dosage for Phase 1 of human trials to cure Type 1 diabetes.

The research has been presented and the NIH confirmed it. By reeducating the confused T-cells and instructing them not to attack healthy islets, an apparent cure of established type 1 diabetes in non-obese diabetic mice is possible. Now, Dr. Faustman is collecting human samples to bestow the same cure for diabetes in humans.

If you wish to be a part of this revolutionary event for curing Type 1 diabetes, please contact the Clinical Coordinator or call Dr. Faustman's lab at (617) 726-4084. Each participant is asked to bring a control person along with them - an unrelated person without Type 1 diabetes or another autoimmune disease. Diabetic or not - you can be a part of history in curing Type 1 diabetes!

What is the purpose of body fat? We all have it, some of us a little more than others. As we grow older, some of our diets fall out of balance with our energy needs causing our white fat cells to become swollen.

White fat cells secrete leptin, adiponectin and resistin. Leptin and adiponectin work together in suppressing appetite. Resistin is the newest discovered - and has been found to participate in the inflammatory response and resistence to insulin. It also triggers an immune response to irritation, so it may be the fat cells attempt to shut your piehole because we're not gonna take it. As the white fat cells take on excessive calories they begin swelling, resulting in an inflammatory response.

Inflammation, by definition, is a protective attempt to remove the injurious stimuli (excess calories) and initiate the healing process. As the fat cells dispatch hormones signaling inflammation - one could hypothesize that Type 2 diabetes is a response to an imbalanced diet - calories in versus calories out. So what do our white fat cells do for us? They are designed to store energy for use in times of need. When your body is sending out DEFCON signals of inflammation - I'd say that is a time of need, indeed. Would inducing ketosis till the swelling goes down help?

As Bev just pointed out, diabulimia is a serious condition when a type 1 diabetic is not taking their insulin in order to lose weight. Diabulimia is a term that has only cropped up in recent years. Most people who experience diabulemia are stuck between two fears: taking increasing doses of insulin, which leads to weight gain, and the damage the destructive behavior is causing their body in the long-term.

One expert who has studied the phenomenon estimates that 450,000 type 1 diabetic women in the United States - one-third of the total - have skipped or shortchanged their insulin to lose weight and are risking a coma and an early death. Ann Goebel-Fabbri, a clinical psychologist at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston says, "People who do this behavior wind up with severe diabetic complications much earlier". Is that supposed to be a warning or a promise? It sounds like she's saying complications are inevitable - but if you're contented with the weight gain - you'll deter the early arrival of complications. Poor advice, doc.

The caution of do as you're told and complications will arrive later is not a very promising guarantee. The behaviors of tight diabetes control are almost tantamount to cultivating eating disorders. Studies show that women with type 1 diabetes are twice as likely to develop an eating disorder. After all -- good diabetes management requires a preoccupation with food, counting carbohydrates and following a diet. Sounds like the ingredients for an eating disorder - throw in a hormonal imbalance (genetically modified insulin that arrives late to the brain, unlike natural vertebrate pork and cow insulin) and you've got yourself diabulemia. Thanks again, Big Pharma!! Where is the prize in good diabetes management if you are punished with weight gain?

If you've been around the diabetes online community you've certainly heard of Amy Tenderich. Her award-winning site is touted as one of the most influential diabetes sites out there. If you're looking for a gold mine of straight talk and encouragement -- Diabetes Mine is your destination. And now is your chance to speak to the celebrity herself! Amy will be chatting live on Tuesday, May 22, 9pm EST on Diabetes Talkfest.

Her charm comes through, loud and clear, in her cynically optimistic view of the trials of living with diabetes. Her journalistic flair derives from the heart and covers topics like breaking news and inside looks at diabetes research, as well as daily life with diabetes and uncovering the diabetics' deepest hopes and fears. Her all inclusive panache, along with her comedic nuances, make every moment of reading worth it.

Diabetes Mine has been featured in the Wall St. Journal, the UK Guardian, TechCrunch, NPR's Future Tense, and a number of other publications. The most recent feather in Amy's cap was added when she collaborated with Dr. Richard Jackson, a leading physician from Joslin Diabetes Center, to co-author the book Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes. True to form, the book is hailed as the first-ever straightforward guidebook providing a clear strategy for living well with diabetes and avoiding the long-term health damage it can cause. I look forward to the opportunity of chatting with Amy. Hope you all can join us!

Situated almost right next to each other in Boston, helping the lives of so many who need it, are the Joslin Diabetes Center and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Patients from around the globe visit this particular area of Beantown, receiving some of the best treatment available for their respective illness. Now, scientists have found that there is much more of a connection between diabetes and cancer than the zip code of these research centers.

Plans are already being drawn up for initial human trials for the use of a diabetes drug that has been shown to dramatically increase the effectiveness of platinum-based chemotherapy. Researchers from Dana-Farber found that when the diabetes drug Rosizitaglone (more popularly known by its brand name of Avandia) was administered in conjunction with a platinum chemotherapy agent, the synergistic was three times as effective at shrank tumors (in mice) than the platinum chemotherapy agent alone.

Researchers hope that the use of this treatment could improve control of ovarian, lung and other cancers that are typically treated with platinum chemotherapy, particularly since these types of cancer can become resistant to the chemotherapy alone over time. In addition, they are examining whether the use of Rosizitaglone - which itself was designed to enhance the sensitivity of insulin receptors in people with type 2 diabetes - could also be used for treating types of cancer that platinum chemotherapy alone had not previously been shown to be effective.

Spring training is already underway, which means that opening day at your nearest ball field is right around the corner. Fittingly, Men's Health magazine features up-and-coming New York Mets slugger David Wright on its cover, and inside some of the game's best players are spotlighted. But, on page 122, you'll find an article on who are considered to be the best of the best -- not on the baseball field, but in the medical field.

Twenty different endocrinologists are listed as being among the best in this area of medicine. Taking top honors in the northeast is Dr. Martin J. Abrahamson, medial director at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. Quoting Dr. Abrahamson, "A 15-minute visit to a primary-care physician isn't enough to help someone self-manage his diabetes. You need a team of experts to help you as you implement a whole new lifestyle to treat the disease."

America's Top Docs from other medical fields are also mentioned: neurologists, psychiatrists, gastroenterologists, dermatologists, cardiologists/internists, urologists, etc. You can find this article in the issue of Men's Health on news stands now.

First, you park your car in a garage that leaves you about two inches between you and the car next to you. After doing your best not to clip their side mirror with your door as you open it, you then make your way out of the garage and across the street. Hmmm? It looks like a bunch of brick buildings, nothing all that remarkable. That's what you say to yourself as you approach. A small sign then directs you down a long, narrow walkway -- which, at first, seems to be nothing more than an alley with a hand rail. A couple of hundred feet or so later, however, you finally see what it is you expected to see: The Joslin Diabetes Center. The world's largest diabetes research center, diabetes clinic, and provider of diabetes education (and also the home to some of the most enormous wind chimes I've ever seen). With its impressive, massive, glass structure and post-modern artistic, metal framework, you feel as if you've almost found The Secret Garden -- er, only it's made of glass and metal.

Whatever. My point is that when you finally arrive at Joslin, you feel like you are somewhere special. Somewhere that things, good things, are happening every day. Advancements, improvements, discoveries, breakthroughs -- you know that words such as these are routinely attributed and applied to the work being done inside that building. The craziest part is that I've only been in the waiting room and the rotunda! Having now gone with my girlfriend to several of her doctor's visits, I've had the pleasure of getting a glimpse into this amazing world of research and technology. Being a patient at Joslin for many, many years, she seems to know so many people by name. But, it seems as though there is someone new over there whose acquaintance she will soon have to make. His name is Ranch Kimball, and aside from having a first name that makes me wish his last name was Hiddenvalley, he is the man who has been appointed the new CEO and president of of Joslin.

Kimball will succeed C. Ronald Kahn, M.D., who was involved at Joslin for 25 years as Executive Vice President and then over 11 years as president. Clearly, Kimball has some big shoes to fill, but this respected former businessman and economic development reformer gets high praises from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

A call has been put out to people with type 2 to participate in a study being conducted by the Joslin Diabetes Center. In efforts to further their exploration of the possible link between inflammation and type 2, Joslin will hold a national clinical trial to test whether Salsalate, an anti-inflammatory drug that for years has been used to reduce arthritis pain, can also reduce blood glucose levels in people with type 2.

Although Joslin is located in Boston, the study is part of a multi-institutional effort involving 15 medical centers from around the U.S. Funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Disease (NIDDK), the researchers are currently seeking 800 people with type 2 to participate in the clinical trials. The study itself is being referred to as Targeting Inflammation with Sasalate in Type 2 Diabetes (TINSAL-T2D). Not exactly the catchiest name, but it serves its purpose just the same.

If you are interested in learning more about the TINSAL-T2D study, and/or may wish to participate, contact Allison B. Goldfine, M.D. by phone at (617) 732-2643 or vial email at Allison.Goldfine@joslin.harvard.edu . You can also visit clinical research section on Joslin's website.

Sixty-nine year old Dan McCracken was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of fifteen. After more than fifty years of living with the disease, managing it on a day-by-day basis, McCracken knows a thing or two about how to stay healthy. And scientists at the highly esteemed Joslin Diabetes Center, which is affiliated with Harvard University, want to know his secrets. They are flying the North Carolina resident to Boston in order to examine him, along with other diabetes patients who have made the fifty-year (or more) mark. In particular, they will be looking at how diabetes affects eyesight, kidney function and the nervous system over the long-term.

As it turns out, the secret to staying healthy with diabetes for so many years is not terribly difficult. It's just a matter of having a basic routine down and sticking with it consistently. That routine includes regularly checking blood sugar levels, staying active and eating a healthy diet - meaning no-sugar, low-starch, and lots of vegetables. "I try to exercise every day - if I am not working in the garden, I try to walk two miles," says McCracken.