It’s a substack page, where they praise themselves for their “award winning journalism” so I would take this article with a massive grain of salt.
for a long time, different insulin types were only produced by a triopoly in the states, otherwise they would lose to cheaper generics, or competition if they were aggresively using competition, i think it changed now.
NOVO nordisk, ELLY lily, and sanofi were the primary producers.
I agree with most of the points regarding how how China does/would treat a diabetes cure in comparison to China, this post (it’s not an article) is garbage. It’s got no sources, just vaguely references a single case.
It would be a better post if it didn’t mention China at all and instead discussed how diabetes is approached under American capitalism.
Terrible hype article. This was one person. And, it’s not unique, similar trials are taking place worldwide. But the US based development was all killed with the NIH cuts.
Sure thing, but I think that was the whole point of the article. It’s not staying that America isn’t enough technologically advanced to achieve that, but that nobody wants to do that because it would kill a huge industry
Also, china is not comunist.
Is there a better source?
Not entirely obvious, but this is what the substack referenced: https://interestingengineering.com/health/stem-cell-therapy-diabetes-china
No.
wasn’t the original inventor of insulin insistent that it remain cheap and readily available?
Banting and Best sold the patent for $1. But they were Canadian.
The cost of insulin has nothing to do with intellectual property.
The current price of insulin is still directly affected by patents. Yes, they are still getting patents 100 years later with analogs and biosimilars.
We certainly could manufacture the original formula for cheap, but no one wants to do that. Capitalism and intellectual property combined are the culprits.
The government could fix this a number of ways, but it hasn’t.
They could have run a non-profit organization that leases out access to the patent, with conditions on pricing and availability. IMO, the pair thought that a for-profit health industry would do the right thing, and were betrayed by the rich bastards of society.
As mentioned in the post, yes.
I love how you call it Communist China when it’s just as run-by-oligarchs as the US is. In fact they made an oligarch president for life.
It’s not communist, it’s socialist with Chinese characteristics! (The characteristics are oligarchs)
It’s not communist, it’s socialist with Chinese characteristics! (The characteristics are oligarchs)
Not for the 400m Chinese earning $40 USD a month.
It’s work till you die with no health care or social security.
Not to mention the tens of millions of unregistered (citizenless) girls who are enslaved to work the world’s biggest sex markets
Pretty big claims to make without any source or citation haha
Ok, I’d really like to see a source for these claims because as far as I know the minimum salary is more than $200 everywhere in the country and the average is way higher. It might be work till you die, that I won’t deny that, but they also do have social security and health care, to a degree that an US citizen would be jealous of.
my summary of china is that they have come to the genius conclusion that you actually have to feed your livestock if you want milk, which is something many other countries seem to have great difficulty comprehending.
Your claims are bullshit US propaganda
That’s the headline on the article, not OPs headline
HIV is next, then cancer. China now has the kind of state scientific infrastructure that the US had in the 1950s. For some reason the USA is actively trying to destroy theirs.
china wouldve been comporable, if they had not just fudge thier numbers, experiments in biological research all the time and make claims that cant be backed up. CCP is quite insular when it comes to research that hasnt been reverse engineered.
We’ve been hearing this for decades. Care to cite some actual data?
I do believe that HIV will happen soon, but curing cancer is a lot like curing the common cold. Even if you cure one strain, there are still hundreds more with the same end result. Cancer is just the umbrella term for a particular type of cellular behavior, but there are a lot of different types, causes, etc and treatments will vary for each.
To be clear, this isn’t some nihilistic doomer “why even bother trying” type of post. Modern medicine has already made great strides in curing several different kinds of specific cancers. But a cure for one cancer will not really equate to “curing cancer”, because there will still be countless others.
I wouldn’t be so sure about HIV. Perhaps a functional cure, but complete remission is probably quite a while away yet.
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!
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.
you mean from the not communist, capitalist china, that one, the one that ditched communism 40 years ago
ok
Yeah. The same one that’s getting new beautiful infrastructure and disease cures.
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.
you’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.
This “cure” was from 2024, per the South China Morning Post.
In case anyone was thinking this was new.
Any news on it since then? It wouldn’t be the first time a scientific achievement out of China that embarrasses The West just fizzled out when no one was looking.
Hell, it calls China “Communist”, I started reading it like it was a headline from the 1960s.
How 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.
Sounds expensive :/
That doesn’t make sense for type 2. This is exactly how they’ve been trialing treatment of type 1, they just announced it a few months ago I think it was Stanford and Toronto
Insulin producing cells die off in type 2 after years of being bombarded with sugar in the US diet.
It’s important to make clear that “sugar” in this context includes simple carbohydrates.
Also known as sugars
The meme account does not concern itself with being wrong
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.
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.
Rate 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.
That population isn’t growing like it used to. Those buildings are looking likely to sit empty indeed.
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.
The article says T2.
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
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.
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.
This treatment is for type 1 (still 12 million cases).
This treatment is for T2.
https://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.
No, it’s for Type 2
Almost 2 million children with type 1 world wide. So sure, good spend.
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.
If aliens came to trade cheap stuff with USA, oligarchist supremacism would declare war on them no matter how badly we’d lose
People shouldn’t have to hope that Chinese scientists cure diabetes just so American companies can’t keep price gouging them. But here we are.
here we are indeed
The author makes great points like this but fails to prove the Chinese have cured diabetes to begin with.
Ohhh nice… where is Communist China again… ?
Looks horrible!
I know where the State Capitalist Chinese Dictatorship is, but yeah, can’t find the Communist one.
Hell, they aren’t even fully State Capitalist anymore, they have billionaires.
Still, if this is true, and widely available, it could be one of the handful of good things done by a bad government. Hell, even if the methods are released for others to improve on, it would be a boon for the world.
There are close to 2 million children with type 1 diabetes worldwide. And I guess there are like 8 million adults, whatever. Cure the kids, let them not die when someone hands them a candy bar.
That is, if this works. Type 1 is usually an autoimmune disease. Do doctors first need to cure the autoimmune disease and then give this treatment? If so, then this is just another temporary treatment for now. Possibly in the range of days if the immune response is particularly aggressive.
This was a single case involving type 2 diabetes. Type 1 would need to be approached differently because it can’t be cured by fixing the pancreas. If this therapy does work, perhaps it would still be a boon for T1 patients as a treatment rather than a cure.
i think it’s hiding under your bed, best keep your feet under the covers.
