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I have just tripped over an article in Science Daily that talks about a newly-discovered mechanism through which T1D develops! It highlights how a team of researchers in the Netherlands have found that the root cause of T1D may not be due to a problem with the immune system but a problem with the beta cells. The researchers found that these beta cells are becoming highly stressed and it is this highly-stressed state that causes the immune system to attack them.
This may sound just like a matter of pedantics but I assure you it is not! This piece of research highlights two key points:
1. The immune system of a Type 1 Diabetic is completely healthy! It is simply doIng its job of clearing away defective cells from the human body.
2. The reason these insulin-producing beta cells are cleared away from the immune system is because they are HIGHLY STRESSED!
This research therefore really confirms to me what I have suspected for quite a while now… My immune system is healthy. (My mum always told me she thought I had very good core health. You know, I never even get a head cold!!) Instead, it is an external factor that is causing my beta cells to become stressed and therefore be ‘attacked’ by my immune system. This external factor is stress, with stress in this context meaning anxiety, anger, fear and toxins of the environment and body.
Please note how, in the paragraph above, I used the present tense when I said ‘is causing my beta cells to become stressed and therefore be ‘attacked’ by my immune system’. That was no mistake. The estimated life span of beta cells is 1-3 months. Therefore, the beta cells in my body that were supposedly burnt out forty years ago were not the only ones I was meant to get. My body should have replaced them with new ones within three months. That didn’t happen. So, what must be happening instead, is that my body is choosing to KEEP destroying, or not growing, beta cells on a continuous basis. My beta cells must be continuously stressed and therefore continually removed by my immune system. Now I just need to remove enough stress from my body to take it out of the continuous fight-or-flight state that it is in so that my beta cells are no longer deemed to be ‘stressed’ by my immune system.
Natalie is a blogger with Type 1 Diabetes. Natalie's special gifts are questioning the status quo and being a rebel. She is using these gifts to question medical 'knowledge' and find a true cure for Type 1 Diabetes.
