SPECIAL FUNDING BOOSTS TYPE 1 DIABETES RESEARCH

HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced a series of major new research initiatives to improve the understanding, treatment, and prevention of type 1 (juvenile) diabetes using special congressional funding for such research. The new funding provides an additional $240 million to be spent during the next three fiscal years (FY 2001-FY 2003) for research in type 1 diabetes, a disease that destroys the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. An estimated 1 million Americans have type 1 diabetes.

"This generous infusion of new funds will help researchers take full advantage of compelling scientific opportunities, such as the findings of the Human Genome Project, to better understand how type 1 diabetes arises, to improve ways to treat it, and even to prevent it," said Secretary Thompson. "The new funding will also help researchers move ahead rapidly with studies in islet transplantation, an exciting experimental treatment for type 1 diabetes."

Major research initiatives planned with the new funds also include:

• a major effort to understand at the molecular level how the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cell is formed and how it is able to produce just the right amount of insulin to control blood sugar. Scientists hope this work will lead to improved cell replacement treatments for type 1 diabetes.
• new clinical trials of promising approaches to prevent or delay onset of type 1 diabetes.
  
  
• studies to identify the genetic and environmental contributors to type 1 diabetes.
• expanded research on ways to safely manipulate the immune system to reverse or prevent type 1 diabetes.
• further animal studies of diabetes, which help scientists understand the genetic and immune mechanisms underlying human disease.
• studies of approaches to prevent low blood sugar, a serious problem and major barrier to achieving good blood glucose control.
• development of therapies to prevent and treat the complications of diabetes.
• application of relevant new technologies to diabetes research.

To develop a rigorous scientific plan for using the new funds, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) relied on a variety of scientific workshops and conferences as well as the recommendations of the congressionally established Diabetes Research Working Group, a panel of 12 leading diabetes researchers and four lay people. In developing the plan, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) obtained the advice and participation of the institutes and centers at NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the two major diabetes voluntary organizations: the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International and the American Diabetes Association.

With the additional new funding, the total NIH spending for diabetes research rises to an estimated $690.1 million for fiscal year 2001, a 27.6 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.

Sixteen million people in the United States have diabetes mellitus, a chronic disease that lowers average life expectancy by up to 15 years and often leads to painful, debilitating complications. Diabetes is the main cause of kidney failure, adult blindness, and non-traumatic amputations in America and a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke and birth defects.

Up to 10 percent of people with diabetes have type 1, formerly known as juvenile onset or insulin-dependent diabetes. Type 1 diabetes develops when the body's immune system destroys pancreatic beta cells, the only cells in the body that make the hormone insulin, which regulates blood glucose. This form of diabetes usually strikes children and young adults, who need several insulin injections a day or an insulin pump to survive. Insulin treatment, however, is not a cure, nor can it reliably prevent the long-term complications of the disease. Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for about 90 percent of diabetes cases in the United States, is most common in adults over age 40. Affecting about 6 percent of the U.S. population, it is strongly associated with obesity (more than 80 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight), inactivity, family history of diabetes, and racial or ethnic background.

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