Treatment of Diabetes type 1 using (BCG) vaccine
The bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine is one of the oldest vaccines in the world, developed for tuberculosis (TB) protection and for early stage bladder cancer therapy. BCG is an attenuated version of the virulent Mycobacterium bovis. Type 1 diabetes is generally thought to be precipitated by an immune-associated, if not directly immune-mediated, destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic β cells. In the past 10 years has seen a surge of clinical trials that re-introduce BCG for a diversity of autoimmune, allergic, and induced adaptive immune responses to childhood infections. In multiple sclerosis(1), BCG halts new onset disease, yet the clinical effect is most dramatic nearly 5 years later. In type 1 diabetes, three BCG vaccines administered in childhood lowered the incidence of T1D by age 12.(2) Many autoimmune NOD (non-obese diabetic) murine (mice) studies have shown a beneficial effect of in preventing the onset of autoimmune diabetes and even reversing full blown established disease in mice.
Other
The attenuated Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette Guérin (BCG) strain has been administered globally for 100 years as a vaccine against tuberculosis. examination of type 1 diabetic subjects with long-term disease who received two doses of the BCG vaccine. After year 3, BCG lowered hemoglobin A1c to near normal levels for the next 5 years. We observe a systemic shift in glucose metabolism from oxidative phosphorylation to aerobic glycolysis, a state of high glucose utilization. To prove BCG could induce a systemic change to promote accelerated glucose utilization and impact blood sugars mice data demonstrated reduced blood sugars and aerobic induction in non-autoimmune mice made chemically diabetic. BCG via epigenetics also resets six central T-regulatory genes for genetic re-programming of tolerance
