Vaccines—Not Just COVID Shots—Linked to Type 1 Diabetes Because of Damage to These Types of Cells

Vaccines—Not Just COVID Shots—Linked to Type 1 Diabetes Because of Damage to These Types of Cells
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Yuhong Dong
By Yuhong Dong, M.D., Ph.D. and Health 1+1, M.D., Ph.D.
6/29/2022
Updated:
10/12/2022
Since early 2021, the Beta Cell Foundation has collected data on vaccine adverse events from 528 patients with type 1 diabetes by using an online database for analysis.
The analysis showed that some patients with type 1 diabetes experienced elevated (or disturbed) blood glucose levels after vaccination with COVID vaccines:
  • After receiving the first dose of an mRNA vaccine (Moderna or Pfizer COVID vaccines), approximately 10 percent to 15 percent of the patients reported an increase in blood glucose within 1 to 2 days and 2 percent reported a decrease;
  • After receiving the second dose of an mRNA vaccine, approximately 30 percent reported an increase in blood glucose, and 1 percent reported a decrease.
  • After the second dose of the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccine, 42 percent had elevated blood glucose.
What is the link between type 1 diabetes, COVID, and the vaccines?

Statistical Analysis of Vaccine Adverse Diabetes Events

Late at night on May 31, 2022, hundreds of parents from 26 provinces and central government directly controlled municipalities across China sent out an online plea for help: more than 600 children had developed type 1 diabetes after receiving the Chinese-manufactured vaccines. Some parents said that their families had no history of diabetes for three generations. Is there a correlation between the vaccines and these childhood diabetes cases?
In addition, we have received a report of adverse events of diabetes after vaccination in mainland China, and the 211 cases in the report had quite detailed information. We analyzed the association between these 211 cases of diabetes and the vaccines received by the patients, by using the same principles as in our previous analysis of the over 800 leukemia cases, with a conservative approach.
  • Gender and age analyses
The patients in these adverse events were predominantly male, with a median age of 12 years old. This is very similar to the age of prevalence of type 1 diabetes, which is more prevalent in children aged 10 to 14.
  • Vaccines
Among patients who were injected with one brand of vaccines, the vaccines produced by Sinovac Life Sciences Co., Ltd accounted for 29 percent, the highest proportion, followed by Beijing Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd., Changchun Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd., and Chengdu Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd. These proportions match with the overall proportions of COVID-19 vaccines used in mainland China.
  • Types of diabetes
Type 1 diabetes was the main type of diabetes that occurred in these patients, accounting for 96 percent. The remainder are other types of diabetes, such as type 2 diabetes. Under normal circumstances, type 1 diabetes accounts for less than 5 percent of the total cases. Type 1 diabetes is hereditary and usually occurs in children or adolescents, whose parents or siblings also have type 1 diabetes, while type 2 diabetes is more common in adults.
  • Time of onset of post-vaccination diabetes cases
Seventy-two percent of all diabetes patients developed symptoms or were diagnosed at a median of 66 days, or 2 months, after the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccines.

Overall, the association between the onset of diabetes and the second dose is very strong in terms of timing. Moreover, among these 211 patients, no one had a family history of diabetes, which is a consistent pattern that warrants alarm.

The SARS-COV-2 Virus Damages Pancreatic Islet Cells and Increases the Risk of Diabetes

The pancreas is an important organ that produces insulin, which is a hormone that binds to the insulin receptors on the cells. It helps glucose enter the cells, so that it can be used by the cells.

When glucose remains in the bloodstream and is unable to enter the cells, it causes high levels of blood glucose. And type 1 diabetes is caused by a significant deficiency of insulin, which prevents blood glucose from being used effectively by the cells and thus causes blood glucose to rise.

The reason for this inability to produce enough insulin is usually damage to the pancreatic islet cells caused by autoimmune or viral problems.

In the case of type 2 diabetes, the body’s insulin secretion is normal, but the cells are not sensitive to insulin, and blood glucose is retained outside the cells and cannot be used effectively, causing hyperglycemia.

Then, is it possible that diabetes is related to COVID-19 infection? Studies have shown that there is indeed a connection between the SARS-COV-2 virus and diabetes.

In 2021, a study jointly published in the journal Cell Metabolism by Stanford University, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Basel, Switzerland, showed that the SARS-COV-2 virus can directly infect pancreatic islet cells and induce their apoptosis (cell death), thus reducing the insulin level. This is fully consistent with the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes mellitus.
In March 2022, the authoritative medical journal The Lancet published a large-scale clinical study of 1 million participants, which found that patients with long COVID had a 40 percent increased risk of developing diabetes. More than 99 percent of diagnoses of diabetes in the study’s cohort relate to type 2 diabetes.

Why Are There Adverse Type I Diabetes Events but Not Type II Diabetes?

We know that the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes is mainly the autoimmune attack on pancreatic islet cells, resulting in insulin deficiency.

The COVID-19 vaccines manufactured in China are mainly inactivated vaccines. The quality of these vaccines is difficult to control, and there may be activated virus particles left in the vaccines. And even a small amount of viruses entering the human body can replicate themselves, thus affecting the body’s immune system.

In addition, all COVID vaccines, no matter what type they are, contain spike proteins, and numerous basic and clinical case studies have found that spike proteins can:
  • induce chronic inflammation
  • damage cellular mitochondria: Every cell has mitochondria, and if the mitochondria in insulin-producing cells are damaged, it may contribute to type 1 diabetes.
  • induce autoimmune phenomena: including autoimmune myocarditis, autoimmune liver diseases, and autoimmune neuritis. Theoretically, it may also induce an immune attack response against its own pancreatic islet cells.

Besides COVID-19 Vaccines, Other Vaccines Can Also Cause Immune Dysfunction in Children

Are there other vaccines, besides the COVID-19 vaccines, that could be associated with diabetes?

Some of the ingredients contained in the COVID-19 vaccines can induce chronic inflammation, damage cellular mitochondria, and cause autoimmune phenomena, all of which can damage pancreatic islet cells and cause diabetes.

In fact, there may be other factors besides this. A private pediatric practice in Portland, Oregon, conducted a decade-spanning retrospective pediatric clinical analysis focusing on the long-term health status of multiple vaccine recipients.

They reviewed all medical records for children born between June 1, 2008 and January 27, 2019. The average numbers of medical office visits were compared between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. Among all the children, 2,763 had received 1 to 40 vaccines, and 561 didn’t receive any vaccine.

The study found significant differences in the numbers of medical office visits for asthma, allergic rhinitis, respiratory infection, and anemia over a decade between the two groups of children.

Of particular note, all 561 of the unvaccinated patients in the study did not have ADHD, while 5.3 percent of the vaccinated children had ADHD.

From this study, we can indeed observe that vaccinated children are more prone to immune disorders such as chronic inflammation, allergies, and even autoimmune disorders.

The study was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, but it has been withdrawn for reasons that weren’t made public. In general, it is unusual for a medical paper to be withdrawn without any clear reason.

1 Common Food is Effective for Diabetes Prevention

Based on the current basic and clinical evidence, children with a family history of diabetes and adult diabetics should really calculate their risks associated with vaccination. If they have already received the COVID-19 vaccines, it is important to minimize the damage caused by them. So what can be done to prevent the possible risks?
  • Type 1 diabetics have a primary lack of insulin and require insulin injections.
  • Type 2 diabetes are mainly treated with oral hypoglycemic drugs, but it may also require insulin supplementation depending on the situation.
Due to the poor drug therapy compliance of some patients, the limited access to conventional hypoglycemic drugs for a large population, and the inevitable side effects and drug resistance of conventional pharmaceuticals, people have been looking for effective natural foods, such as natural fruits and vegetables and herbs, to lower their blood sugar. Holistic therapies, including regular exercise, low-sugar and low-carbohydrate diets, adequate sleep and stress control, can be beneficial for type 1 diabetes and even type 2 diabetes.

Therefore, our recommended foods include ginseng, bitter gourd, and berberine. These bitter-tasting foods can be consumed more often, and there is a scientific reason behind it.

Bitter Melon Improves Insulin Function

Bitter melon is a medicinal plant of the gourd family. Scientists have found that its many components, including saponins, polysaccharides, triterpenoids, proteins, vitamins, minerals, flavonoids, ascorbic acid, and steroids, all have health benefits for the human body.

Scientists have also specifically studied the hypoglycemic effects of various bitter melon concentrates:

A study published in the journal Phytomedicine showed that bitter melon saponins can induce cells to produce more insulin.

Bitter melon can also enhance cellular sensitivity to insulin and reduce metabolic syndrome.

An animal study published in the Journal of Medicinal Food in 2011 showed that bitter melon seeds can increase the sensitivity of peripheral cells to insulin, thereby reducing the symptoms associated with metabolic syndrome, which can be effective against type 2 diabetes.
Overall, bitter melon is beneficial for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes because it:
  • promotes the secretion of insulin
  • improves insulin resistance
  • protects pancreatic cells
  • promotes the metabolism of glucose and fatty acids, stimulates fatty acids, and reduces metabolic syndrome
  • is anti-inflammatory
  • is antioxidant
A study published in Nutrition Journal in 2015 found that bitter melon has a moderate hypoglycemic effect compared to a glucose-lowering drug called glibenclamide.

Although bitter melon is not as effective as glibenclamide in lowering blood sugar, it can be more effective in improving cardiovascular risk factors associated with diabetes. Triglyceride and total cholesterol levels were significantly lower in people who received bitter melon doses, whereas blood lipids rose in those who took glibenclamide instead.

Diabetes is not simply a blood sugar symptom, but essentially a metabolic disorder. The nutrients in bitter melon can act on multiple levels, as they not only focus on lowering blood sugar, but can also lower blood lipids and help with weight loss. If the entire body’s internal environment is adjusted, and the state of metabolic syndrome is reversed, blood sugar will naturally slowly drop, which is the treatment of the fundamental cause of the disease rather than simply managing symptoms.

Oral hypoglycemic drugs may have a better effect on lowering blood sugar, but they cannot solve the root cause of the disease.

The treatment of the disease should also focus on the big picture, in order to solve the root cause of the disease.

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