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!
you mean from the not communist, capitalist china, that one, the one that ditched communism 40 years ago
ok
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.
Nice bot 👍
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The article says T2.
This treatment is for type 1 (still 12 million cases).
No, it’s for Type 2
Almost 2 million children with type 1 world wide. So sure, good spend.
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.
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.
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.
Sounds expensive :/
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)
That’s the headline on the article, not OPs headline
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.
Also, china is not comunist.
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.
Is it really an achievement if it fizzles out?
A real groundbreaking achievement may travel slow, but it will stay steady since it actively improves lives. People will keep talking about it.
Unlike, lets say, propaganda. That goes fast and fizzles out faster.
We should be able to check if the amount of diabetes in China falls down rapidly.
It is if the results were falsified. Even it it worked somewhat, they’re probably greatly over stating the effectiveness or ability to scale to a mass population.
I remember years back, China solved world hunger by growing mushrooms in caves. I can’t find anything on that anymore, but I still have a friend listing that accomplishment.
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.
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.
No.
Is there a better source?
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.
A book I was just reading talked about the pluripotent cells and using them for medical treatments. The author was talking to a US lab but then their work was cancelled due to funding cuts. Doesn’t surprise me that China is taking up the slack.
Just because China got there first doesn’t mean American companies aren’t trying.
… Even after the gutting of the funding?
Look at their share prices
Your link actually demonstrates that the US may get there first. You linked a large scale clinical study in the US, whereas OP’s article is a single case study. Also, OP’s case study treated type 2 DM and explicitly noted that Type 1 will be more difficult to treat, while the study you linked is already targeting Type 1. Interested to see how the study you linked turns out!
Ah, that’ll teach me for not reading the OP link
Sure…
Curing patients is not a sustainable business model.
If aliens came to trade cheap stuff with USA, oligarchist supremacism would declare war on them no matter how badly we’d lose
Diabetes isn’t only caused by a lack of insulin; it can also be caused by faulty insulin receptors. I wonder if this helps with that
No - this was a targeted therapy that introduced new islet cells into the patient’s pancreas. If he had damaged or non-functioning insulin receptors, this therapy would not have benefitted him.
Would be nice if that were mentioned in the post.
There’s a another China? Better don’t tell Winnie Pooh about it.
