Lettuce and Diabetes

Gretchen Becker Living With It Author, Humorist, wildlyfluctuating.blogspot.com Gretchen Becker studied biology for 8 years at Radcliffe/Harvard,... Send Message Subscribe: Gretchen Becker

Thursday, August 02, 2007
View All of Gretchen Becker's Posts

Can insulin produced in lettuce cure type 1 diabetes some day? Possibly. In mice, it seems to modulate the immune attack on the beta cells that is the hallmark of type 1 diabetes. But the pathway is complex. Therapeutic insulin is usually injected. This is for two reasons. First, most protei...

Hide Comments | Add comment

human test studies/lettuce & diabetes
Cindy Murdoch
Saturday, September 01, 2007 at 06:31 PM

Where will the studies be held and how can you be considered to be chosen as a subject?

re: human test studies/lettuce & diabetes
Gretchen Becker
Saturday, September 01, 2007 at 06:53 PM

I'm afraid I don't know the answers to these questions. Search on "Henry Daniell" and lettuce and see what you find. I did read somewhere that the trials have begun, and they're probably in Florida, where Daniell is.

You could try contacting him or the university where he works, the University of Central Florida, but he said he's gotten thousands of e-mails since the story broke.

re: re: human test studies/lettuce & diabetes
Cindy Murdoch
Thursday, September 06, 2007 at 11:18 PM
Thank you for your reply. I have no doubt that he will have more people to choose from than spots in the trials. Florida is on the opposite coast from us, so we will just have to hope for good results from those who do the trials.

Lettuce, pro-insulin and diabetes
Jenn Warren
Monday, December 17, 2007 at 08:54 PM
I wonder if this technique will eventually be combined with beta cell/pancreatic islet cell transplants, to prevent rejection of these transplants? Currently these patients have to use some pretty harsh immune suppressant agents to avoid rejection.

re: Lettuce, pro-insulin and diabetes
Gretchen Becker
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 at 09:52 AM

I think the idea of this research is that you don't need to do the transplants because most people will regenerate their beta cells if they're not being destroyed faster than they're being replaced.

Immune tolerance is very complex, and I'm not sure this technique would work for "foreign" beta cells, which would have different "self-markers."

possible reason
claudia lee
Wednesday, August 06, 2008 at 12:20 PM

I am a licence caregiver and my client has a card for marijuana.Medical marijuana brings down insulin levels faster then prepared insulin injections.

Does lettuce have the same properties as cannibus? Drug tests have given false results

because of lettuce salads consumed before the job related drug test.Ive heard that many plants have thc but lower level

Possibly injest the lettuce in a different fashion[smoking] and i believe it breaks down in the system easier, I hope you try the medical marijuana on test rats to understand the conection. I make medical marijuanA cooking goods and can produce the bake ware w/o the thc "high". I havent concluded that eatting m.marijuana has the same effect on high insulin readings as ingesting it.

Me and Carbs
J.A.MOOORE
Monday, August 25, 2008 at 02:03 PM

The story seems to good to be true. However, I'd like to stand in line to do the trials. It seems that I'm very reactive to carbs. Certain carbs raise my blood sugars and keep them up. One of those foods is paste. I LOVE PASTE. I cannot eat paste unless its that Greenfields? I thnk brand. However, when I did eat paste before that it was high blood sugars into the next day - except when I preceeded my paste with a large salad. I had to eat a large salad prior to my paste and the sugar didn't go up near as high as it did without salad. My thoughts on it was the roughage of the lettus disguised the paste and fooled my stomach into thinking it was all green. Just a funny thought! Thx jam