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...
Lettuce and Diabetes
12/17/07 8:54pm
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.
12/18/07 9:52am
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."
8/ 6/08 12:20pm
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.
8/25/08 2:03pm
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
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Where will the studies be held and how can you be considered to be chosen as a subject?
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.