Have any of you ever heard of a cure for type 1 coming from tobacco? It sounds crazy, but was briefly touched on in a Reuters article published today through RedNova and Newsweek, among others.”…Daniell said he is working with tobacco-grown treatments for type 1 diabetes, hepatitis C, plague and cholera. Daniell said type 1 diabetes has been reversed in eight weeks in mice fed with his tobacco-grown insulin.” (Source: Genetically engineered tobacco could save lives.) I keep up on research as much as possible, but I have never even heard of making “insulin” from tobacco, let alone reversing type 1 with it. Just interested in opinions, if it’s possible.

From the African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 2, No. 12, December, 2003 pp. 679-683:

“Stopping autoimmunity In the past 15 years, investigators have identified several beta cell proteins that can elicit autoimmunity in people predisposed to type 1 diabetes. The development of plant based diabetes vaccines in potatoes and tobacco containing insulin or GAD linked to the innocuous B subunit of the V. cholerae toxin (to enhance uptake of the antigens by M cells) was attempted. The developed transgenic potato and tobacco plants, when fed to non-obese diabetic mice, showed increased levels of IgG1, an antibody associated with cytokines that suppress harmful immune responses.”Molecular Pharming” to produce autoantigens in plants targeting other autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus and even transplant rejection is under way.”

It seems like the insulin from these plants is useful for stopping the development of diabetes in predisposed animals (more than treating diabetes). Many things that work to prevent diabetes in mice don’t work in humans, but this may be something to keep an eye on.

LAD