STEM CELL HOPE HIDDEN UNDER WET BLANKET

I am continuously amazed at the wet blanket attitude that is projected by so many in light of significant stem cell breakthroughs.

First they say: “stem cell treatment has enabled patients with type 1 diabetes to go for as long as four years without insulin injections”

…pretty awesome huh?

Then they say: “the team warned the treatment may only work in those very recently diagnosed”

…oh, really…bummer.

Let’s just overlook that “recently diagnosed” actually means “recently developed symptoms” (I am fairly sure they don’t mean a 75 yr old grandmother who was “recently diagnosed” as having lived with diabetes for 55 years.) and as my friend the actuary likes to say: “Let’s just concentrate on the numbers.”

· Diabetes Prevalence – Total: 23.6 million children and adults — 8.0% of the population — have diabetes.  The total prevalence of diabetes increased 13.5% from 2005-2007.

· Diagnosed: 17.9 million people

· Undiagnosed: 5.7 million people (24%!)

· Pre-diabetes: 57 million people

· 1.6 million new cases of diabetes were diagnosed in people aged 20 years or older in 2007.

http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-statistics.jsp

· 798,000 people are diagnosed each year in the United States alone. – http://www.diabetesimprovement.com/newlydiagnosed.html

· 2007 – 15,000 children and adolescents in the United States are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and about 3,700 youth are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes each year. – http://www.news-medical.net/?id=26975

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Ok, those are the numbers….So how SHOULD this article have been written?

How about…

World celebrates as new results prove diabetes pandemic can be stopped in it’s tracks with early detection!  Government to spend 10 million on improved early diabetes detection. (wait, where would they get the money…oh!) Money to be saved from not having to spend 100 million on late stage diabetes treatments.

Or….

5.7 million undiagnosed diabetes victims can now be saved from the trials of diabetes, amputation, blindness, kidney disease…etc with a single blood test.

Maybe you can come up with a different slant?

Point is; this is HUGE news!  Can we now cure every diabetic in the world?  No.  But we can potentially cure MILLIONS and this is a time for celebration for those people…and a time for optimism for the potential cures for others who are more advanced (as the science improves)…not a time for warnings of limitations.

But no, they stick to the glass is half empty position and say:
“It would be wrong to unnecessarily raise the hopes of people living with diabetes about a new treatment for the condition on the back of the evidence provided in this study.”

But you know what I think?

I think caution is good…but we are talking about people who are living with diabetes!  In my book, that makes them pretty damn tough already.  They are not little kittens and they don’t have to have their hopes “managed” or “spoon fed” to them.  In fact, raising their hopes may be EXACTLY what they need to survive through one more day of diabetes related pills and insulin, threats of blindness and amputation, reduction of lifespan, kidney and liver disease…etc. etc.

So celebrate the victories, embrace the hope and ALWAYS remember:

“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope-nothing else. – Patti Davis

“There is only hope or the absence of hope-nothing else.“

DAMN STRAIGHT!