Tuberculosis vaccination against COVID and T1

[Jon-Manchester]

While I was browsing for news around COVID19, I came across this Faustman Lab who are working on using Tuberculosis vaccination to prevent and reverse autoimmune diseases including type 1 diabetes. They think it can help against COVID19 infections as well
Not really trusting what I was reading as surely we would have heard about it if it was real, that was until I noticed that they have published in Nature, which is arguably one of the most respected science papers.

Long-term reduction in hyperglycemia in advanced type 1 diabetes: the value of induced aerobic glycolysis with BCG vaccinations - npj Vaccines

In patients with long-term type 1 diabetes, the tuberculosis vaccine BCG lowers blood sugar levels to near-normal after three years. Denise Faustman and her team from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School investigated a cohort of type 1 diabetics that received two doses of...

www.nature.com

"After year 3, BCG lowered hemoglobin A1c to near normal levels for the next 5 years"

Why havent we heard more about this?

 

[Deleted member 27171]

Hi @Jon-Manchester this was in the press in 2018 when first published (not the COVID element of course). Diabetes UK response can be found here: https://blogs.diabetes.org.uk/?p=10671

 

[Jon-Manchester]

Hi @Jon-Manchester this was in the press in 2018 when first published (not the COVID element of course). Diabetes UK response can be found here: https://blogs.diabetes.org.uk/?p=10671

Thank you Lucy, that is really interesting. I hadn't seen that.

I dont quite understand it though as Diabetes UK reported that they only tested
it on 3 people but if you read the Nature article they say it was tested on 282 people?

Faustman Lab is running another study now with another 150 people (100 with T1 and 50 'healthy'people)

https://www.faustmanlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/The_BCG_Clinical_Trial_Program_at_MGH-1.pdf

Very interesting I think you

 

[trophywench]

Is it why my T1 didn't manifest whilst I was still at school after I had my BCG vaccination and didn't appear till I was 22 ? Do teenagers still get them, routinely as we did?

 

[Lanny]

Is it why my T1 didn't manifest whilst I was still at school after I had my BCG vaccination and didn't appear till I was 22 ? Do teenagers still get them, routinely as we did?

Very interesting thought that!

I never got a BCG injection as I passed the 6 pricks test both times, in primary school & again in secondary school. I was very relieved both times, especially the first, as the injection needle looked huge!😱

 

[Robin]

Is it why my T1 didn't manifest whilst I was still at school after I had my BCG vaccination and didn't appear till I was 22 ? Do teenagers still get them, routinely as we did?

They don’t do children in the U.K. routinely now. I never had one (my skin test came up positive, like Lanny's) and I didn’t develop diabetes til I was 50. Make of that what you will!

 

[Kaylz]

I was tested in high school and although it came back that I didn't need the BCG I got given it anyway as my dads uncle had TB xx

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Is it why my T1 didn't manifest whilst I was still at school after I had my BCG vaccination and didn't appear till I was 22 ? Do teenagers still get them, routinely as we did?

Apparently it stopped in 2005. Didn't stop me from getting diabetes in 1981 (when I was 15). You'd have thought if it had a significant effect then the 2005 cutoff would be visible in the T1 statistics somehow, but as far as I know it's not.

 

[Jon-Manchester]

You'd have thought if it had a significant effect then the 2005 cutoff would be visible in the T1 statistics somehow, but as far as I know it's not.

Yes absolutely. Reading the article though, I get the impression that they give higher dose and multiple , beyond what is needed for just TB immunisation but I might just be misinterpreting that.

Just looked it up on wikipedia, I had no idea it was used for so many things or that it was part of the standard care for various cancers...

"BCG has been one of the most successful immunotherapies.[26] BCG vaccine has been the "standard of care for patients with bladder cancer(NMIBC)" since 1977.[26][27] By 2014 there were more than eight different considered biosimilar agents or strains used for the treatment of non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC).[26] [27]

• A number of cancer vaccines use BCG as an additive to provide an initial stimulation of the person's immune systems.
• BCG is used in the treatment of superficial forms of bladder cancer. Since the late 1970s, evidence has become available that instillation of BCG into the bladder is an effective form of immunotherapy in this disease.[28] While the mechanism is unclear, it appears a local immune reaction is mounted against the tumor. Immunotherapy with BCG prevents recurrence in up to 67% of cases of superficial bladder cancer.
• BCG has been evaluated in a number of studies as a therapy for colorectal cancer.[29] The US biotech company Vaccinogen is evaluating BCG as an adjuvant to autologous tumour cells used as a cancer vaccine in stage II colon cancer."