theHRguyCommunist China Just Cured Diabetes and America's Insulin Industry is Not Happy About it
They’re getting new beautiful infrastructure and disease cures.
We’re bringing back measles, coal mining, and actively stupefying our kids for profit.
USA! USA!
Have you ever heard of Tofu buildings? A bunch of Chinese construction companies have been using unwashed beach sand in their concrete. This means there’s salt in the concrete.
So you can walk up to some of these buildings and with just a little effort, rip a chunk off with your bare hands.
The companies are still doing it, because it’s cheaper, and they rarely get in trouble. It’s a sign of Chinese capitalism, reckless disregard for harm done in the name of profit. The US went through a phase like that from about 1607 until we all died in nuclear hellfire during the Able Archer exercises in 1983.
The companies are still doing it, because it’s cheaper, and they rarely get in trouble. It’s a sign of Chinese capitalism, reckless disregard for harm done in the name of profit.
80% of the sand used in their construction is now artificial… Because they stopped using unwashed sand.
It took me less than 5 minutes to find this out with a simple search.
‘fun’ read about able archer though.
Swedneckyou’re aware that americans just consider it completely normal to be able to punch a hole in a wall, right?
That’s just drywall. Interior wall cladding isn’t really structural in American building. But being able to punch through brick or concrete would be wildly concerning, even for Americans.
you mean from the not communist, capitalist china, that one, the one that ditche communism 4 years ago
ok
I get where you’re coming from, but I’m also skeptical about the results. How do they get the body to stop attacking the pancreas permanently?
Until enough data is collected patients may just go right back down the line. It isn’t an instant process.
JännätThat’s pretty incredible. I wonder if the patients will have to get more insulin-producing cells transplanted every few years, or if this is a “one and done” type of deal?
In any case, an autologous cell transplant every ≥3 years or so is a vast improvement over the current situation for type 2 diabetes
owseiIIRC the biologist that runs the YT channel Though Emporium did this some years ago regarding his lactose intolerance and he had to get more after some years because his body didn’t naturally produce them
But I hope this is different
elbuchoThis is a different matter entirely. The person who runs that channel (I love that channel, btw) does not have functional genes to produce lactase (the enzyme that lyses the bonds in lactose). Either he can’t make any lactase, or he can only make insufficient quantities of it.
What he did was introduce lactase producing bacteria into his small intestine. This required him to kill off most of his gut flora and then repopulate it with compatible species, including some lactase producers. So it’s not exactly correct to say that he cured himself of lactose intolerance; he just got something to create lactase for him. He had to repeat the therapy years later because his gut flora changed over time (likely due to shifts in his diet), and the quantity of little lactase producing bacterial buddies living in his intestines declined.
This is blatantly incorrect to a degree that i’d call it an outright lie, spending 30 seconds looking it up would show you that his video is literally titled “I Genetically Engineered MYSELF to Fix Lactose Intolerance”.
Shit - you know what? You’re right. It’s been a while since I saw the video, and I had it mixed up in my mind with a similar video I saw of a guy doing a fecal transplant to fix his lactose intolerance. I went back to check the Thought Emporium video, and yeah - he used a retrovirus to introduce the E. coli lacZ gene into his small intestine’s brush border cells. That’s my bad; sorry about the misinfo. You’re right in that I could have easily looked it up, but I went from memory instead, and it was… unreliable.
That virus will insert randomly into the genome. Huge risk of cancer, assuming it isn’t total bullshit like all of YouTube
lactose intolerance is a very very different thing from diabetes.
Insulin is a fundamental part of keeping you alive, and if you fuck up the balance you can die which is why diabetes is such a big deal.
Lactose intolerance is just the inability to digest a specific kind of sugar, which means bacteria in your digestive system can gorge themselves and give you an absurd amount of gas and other very unpleasant but ultimately not particularly dangerous consequences.
This experiment was done on a type 2 diabetes patient. Type 2 diabetes is characterized by damaged islet cells due to a diet high in glucose / carbohydrates. Changing the diet won’t undo the damage, it will just not cause further damage. This patient had enteric neuronal stem cells (nerve tissue from the gut) extracted, and those extracted cells were induced to differentiate into pancreatic islet cells in vitro (in a lab). Once differentiated, they were transplanted back into the patient, and they were able to successfully implant into his pancreas and repair some of the damage his diet had caused.
If the patient had type 1 diabetes, this would not be an effective therapy, as the issue in type 1 diabetes is that the body’s own immune system attacks the cells. A similar approach has been tested for type 1 diabetes, and it has seen some success when combined with immune suppressant drugs to limit the damage caused by the autoimmune disorder.
Since this patient had type 2, however, theoretically he should not need additional therapy as long as he does not go back to a destructive diet or suffer trauma to his pancreas due to accidents.
SnausagesinaBlanketHow the Therapy Works
The process involves regenerative medicine, utilizing the patient’s own body’s capabilities to treat the illness.
Cell Extraction: A small sample of cells (e.g., fat cells or blood cells) is taken from the patient.
Reprogramming: These cells are chemically treated in a lab to revert them to a pluripotent state, meaning they can develop into any type of cell.
Differentiation and Transplantation: The stem cells are then guided to become functional, insulin-producing islet cells. These new cells are then transplanted back into the patient’s abdominal area.
Restored Function: Once implanted, the cells engraft and begin producing insulin naturally in response to blood glucose levels, effectively restoring the body’s natural ability to regulate blood sugar.
I wonder if the US diabetic population is comparable to the Chinese diabetic population. Similar weight and eating habits? If not that could complicate things.
UnderpantsWeevilRate of diabetes in China “explosive”
China has the world’s largest diabetes population, with over 118 million adults (approx. 11–12% prevalence) living with the disease as of late 2024–2025, driven by rapid urbanization, obesity, and an aging population. The epidemic has shifted dramatically from less than 1% prevalence in 1980 to a major public health challenge, with type 2 diabetes accounting for over 90% of cases
This is a consistent pattern in Chinese domestic politics. What a western nation would pick out as a profit center, the Chinese state addresses as a social cost. So the state plows a small fortune into cost-effective medical solutions, rather than squeezing the existing health care system out for therapeutic remedies that never resolve the root problem.
This is a consistent pattern in Chinese domestic politics
What are other examples?
It should be noted that this treatment sounds likely to be very expensive, and also if someone doesn’t change their lifestyle, the newly implanted functional cells are likely to become dysfunctional again over time, requiring another expensive cycle of treatment
What are other examples?
Environmental policy was a big one. China took a hard pivot in the '00s, cutting emissions, advancing alternative energy, reforesting deserts, rapidly advancing HSR, building enormous wild life refugees.
Their insourcing of processors was another. Going from Taiwan’s biggest customer to it’s biggest competitor in a decade and change.
Then there was the housing boom - remember “Chinese Ghost Towns”? All over the news in the early '10s. Now China has more homeowners than any other county on Earth with more than 90% of households owning at least one property.
i’ve never understood how anyone could think the “ghost towns” wouldn’t obviously be filled shortly. One of the most significant facts about China is that they have a stupendously massive population, and consider Boston a quaint medium-sized town.
This isn’t a cure for type 2, it’s a cure for type 1. Lifestyle has very little effect on type 1. You just don’t have enough insulin, sometimes you don’t have any, and usually it’s a result of an autoimmune disease or genetic issue.
In the actual study, the subject had Type 2 diabetes, and the authors note that treating Type 1 will be much more difficult due to the immunology involved
I’m sorry, I just assumed that cancer of a site got it wrong, and then went on to assume it was another example where someone had and autoimmune disease, and then had their immune system reset via something like chemo. The pancreas in such cases is still roached, so adding new insulin producing cells makes sense.
Type 2 is caused by insulin resistance. And yeah, more insulin can help, but I’d not call it a cure. A cure is reversing the resistance.
Agreed, the article says all of this but it doesn’t make a lot of sense. This is generally the mindset everyone has been using to treat type 1. Type 1 is about production, type 2 is about resistance. This treatment doesn’t address resistance, it just makes more insulin. More insulin is not more better, and has consequences.
MalReynoldsThis treatment is for type 1 (still 12 million cases).
www.nature.com/articles/s41421-024-00662-3
I stand corrected, it is for both T1 and the 30% of T2 that are insulin dependent. Cool.
I believe you may conflating type 1, and type 2. Type 1 does not have a causal relationship with food consumption. The article also might be conflating the two as it mentions curing type 2, but by using the methodology everyone has been looking into to treat the autoimmune issues of type 1s.
Multiple types are autoimmune. Doesn’t the body continue to attack the cells?
This was one test in one patient. We didn’t hear about the patients where this didn’t work. Very shitty article.
Well shit. At least I wasn’t willing to get my hopes up.
The concept is being trialed worldwide, but it will be too expensive for anyone
Yeah, but that’s a bit beside the point. I’m a bit incredulous that it would work long-term.
But I don’t know anybody who specializes in autoimmune diseases besides my endocrinologist. And I won’t be seeing her for a bit.
Seriously, MASSIVE source citation needed. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
DiplomjodlerShhhhhhhh! Don’t you know facts and evidence are tools of capitalist oppression!
smegSouth China Morning Post: scmp.com/…/chinese-scientists-report-world-first-…
BigFigMy cousin Doug’s girlfriend?
Sumocat