Things that I Read Every Day.

-All the Facebook status updates I can stand (good thing I only have 113 friends).
-As much Yahoo news as I can get away with at work.
-Annie's Blog
-The Happiness Project
-All of my e-mails (even if I don't always respond to them).
-Job postings on island.
-Working on reading my Bible everyday.

Hope.

Transplants Help Type 1 Diabetics Skip Insulin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – People with type 1 diabetes who got stem cell transplants were able to go as long as four years without needing insulin treatments, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

They said the process, which involves injecting people with stem cells made from their bone marrow cells, appears to have a lasting effect.

The study involved patients with Type 1 diabetes, formerly called juvenile diabetes, which occurs when the immune system goes haywire and starts attacking itself, destroying insulin-producing cells in the pancreas needed to control blood sugar.

These patients typically need daily insulin therapy to control their diabetes.

Dr. Richard Burt of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and colleagues first reported on the short-term success of the procedure, known as autologous non-myeloablative hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation, in 2007 but have since looked at how long it persisted.

Writing in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association they said 20 of 23 patients "became insulin free -- 12 continuously and eight transiently -- for periods as long as four years." The transient group of eight had to restart insulin at reduced levels.

The patients ranged in age from 13 to 31.

To find out if the change was lasting the research team said they measured levels of C-peptides, which show how well the body is producing insulin. They found those levels increased "up to 24 months after transplantation and were maintained until at least 36 months," their report said.

Even in the group which had to restart insulin there was still a significant increase in C-peptide levels that lasted at least two years, the researchers said.

They said the procedure was able to induce "prolonged and significant increases of C-peptide levels" in the small group of patients who were taking little or no insulin.

"At the present time (it) remains the only treatment capable of reversing type 1 diabetes mellitus in humans," the team wrote.

"Randomized controlled trials and further biological studies are necessary to confirm the role of this treatment in changing the natural history of (the disease)," they added.

E is for E! and Other Mental Garbage.

I blame it all on Hope.

My favorite college roommate had a predilection for spending hours a week in the tub with Star Magazine. And back in the days of "Are Brad and Angelina dating? OMGOMG, is she pregnant?! Oh man, that sucks for Jen..." it was easy to get sucked in to the whirlwind of celebrity gossip. I found myself sneaking her copies of InTouch into my room to devour and eventually copying her style of tub-time gossip mongering.

After getting married and moving on to my unemployed existence in Virginia, I would keep E! on during the day for "background noise" on those long, lonely days. I couldn't leave Shoppers or Target without a glossy in my hands (and I spent a lot of time at Shoppers and Target). I'd try to quit, but would always be lured in with more details about Anna Nicole, Britney, Jessica Simpson... People I never really, truthfully cared for.

Well, when we moved to Okinawa, it seemed as though the curse would be broken. By the time the mags hit the American stores here, the new was as stale as, well, a month old weekly. I missed the birth of Jamie Lynn's bundle of joy. How could I live with myself? How could I go on, so out of touch with the world of those starlets?

The answer: Celebitchy.com. Oh, and a subscription to InTouch.

Don't hate.

I've been waiting 20 years for this.

Bruer also announced that Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson will reunite to star in "Ghostbusters 3." Though the release date is still TBA, writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky from "The Office" have been tapped to draft the script. One rumored story line is that the four original members will mentor a new generation of slime-spackled Ghostbusters.

Hollywood...Bets Big on Sequels