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by rb1 3400 days ago
AFAIK, type 1 diabetes is thought to be an autoimmune disease, where the immune system incorrectly identifies the beta cells as an infection/foreign body and destroys them.

With that in mind, I wonder how effective this actually is. I (I'm a T1 diabetic) grow some new beta cells, my overly aggressive immune system wipes them out again..

EDIT: reading the reddit thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/5vufpb/the_pancrea... - thanks austinjp) i'm not the only one to ask this. The general consensus is it's not going to be useful for T1 diabetics, it's just treating the symptoms, not the cause (the immune system), again (like injecting insulin).

1 comments

This might have something to do with that study few years ago that indicated that fast 3 day fast resets the immune system.

Prolonged Fasting Reduces IGF-1/PKAto Promote Hematopoietic-Stem-Cell-Based Regeneration and Reverse Immunosuppression

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B97CJJ5YOfctTUoxWkVFN3Y4b3M

I wonder if this might of been a repair mechanism evolved when going some time without access to food was more common. Perhaps there is a biological reason certain organs can't be repaired while the digestive system is running at full capacity.