MORE VACCINES FASTER, PLEASE:

For more than 100 years, it's been jabbed into the arms of children around the world to fend off tuberculosis. Now, a researcher at MGH is testing whether this very old vaccine could help lower blood sugar levels in children with Type 1 diabetes.

The research, led by Dr. Denise Faustman, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Immunobiology Laboratory, is in its early stages and has proved to be controversial among diabetes researchers and interest groups. But evidence is growing that the vaccine, called bacillus Calmette Guérin or BCG, can do more than prevent TB.

Annually, 100 million doses of the vaccine are given to newborns in 84 percent of the world's countries. Because TB isn't common in the United States, children here do not receive the vaccine.

Studies have tied the vaccine to lower rates of childhood mortality and stronger immunity against a host of infectious diseases. There are also signs the vaccine can calm the immune system, benefiting people with allergies and autoimmune diseases. [...]

A small phase 1 clinical trial, published in 2012, showed BCG prompted higher levels of insulin production than in placebo-treated subjects. In a long-term follow of the trial, published in 2018, Faustman's lab found that adult patients with diabetes treated with the vaccine experienced 10 to 18 percent reductions in blood sugar levels and were able to use less insulin. Diabetic patients in the same trial who were treated with a placebo showed almost no improvement.

Research has found that reducing levels of hemoglobin A1c, a measure of blood glucose, by even 10 percent can lower the risk of lifelong complications from diabetes.

A phase two clinical trial, begun in 2015 with 150 patients, is ongoing, with results expected in a year and a half.

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