Yes, I do.
Thank you very much to the committee members for this opportunity to speak, and my apologies for not being there in person.
I'm a professor and laboratory-based diabetes researcher at UBC and at the BC Children's Hospital. I'm head of the diabetes research program at the Research Institute of BC Children's Hospital and director of the BC Diabetes Research Network.
Today I speak to you as an individual, but one who is representative of many diabetes researchers across the country.
My research has been funded for 20 years by the federal government through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, CIHR, as well as other organizations, such as JDRF, Diabetes Canada and the Stem Cell Network, and I am deeply appreciative of the support of my work.
Today I would like to speak to you about the potential for research in diabetes to slow, reverse and hopefully cure this disease one day; to provide hope for people living with diabetes; and to inform practice guidelines and government strategy.
This committee has heard from others in previous meetings about the devastating impact of diabetes on the health and well-being of millions of Canadians. Briefly, diabetes is a chronic and currently incurable disease in which a lifetime of high blood sugars can lead to devastating complications, including blindness, kidney failure, amputations and heart disease, potentially cutting years off one's life. As well, the cost to our health care system is in the billions of dollars annually and rising.
Canada has one of the highest incidence rates of type 1 diabetes worldwide. This is the autoimmune form of the disease that often strikes children and adolescents but that occurs in adults as well. It is increasing in prevalence for reasons we don't understand and we need research to answer. At the BC Children's Hospital a new child is diagnosed with diabetes every few days.
Type 2 diabetes, the metabolic form of the disease that's associated with obesity and aging, is also on the rise, and disturbingly is now being seen in youth.
Close to 11 million people have diabetes or pre-diabetes across Canada, and as you know, the disease disproportionately impacts certain vulnerable populations, including indigenous peoples and those of Asian and South Asian descent.
Another aspect of the burden of diabetes is that the disease carries with it increased risk of a number of other conditions. For example, the risk of pancreatic cancer is approximately double in persons with diabetes. Persons with diabetes are also at greatly increased risk for mental health issues, including anxiety and depression. We need research to better understand the link between diabetes and these debilitating and very serious conditions.
This morning I'd like to send a few simple messages to the committee regarding diabetes research in Canada, its history, its value and importance, and its promise.
First, you should know that Canadian research in diabetes is outstanding and world-leading and has a truly remarkable history.
As we approach the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin by Fred Banting and colleagues at the University of Toronto in 1921, it's important to point out that Canadian researchers have played pivotal roles in the development of a number of other therapies in worldwide use for the treatment of diabetes. These include not just insulin, of course, but also newer classes of drugs used in type 2 diabetes known as DPP-4 inhibitors and GLP-1 analogues.
In addition, the Edmonton Protocol for clinical transplantation of islets, the clusters of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas called beta cells, is recognized worldwide, and has made replacement of insulin-producing beta cells by transplantation a clinical reality, albeit one that's not yet widely available and needs further research. Canadian diabetes researchers are now playing a leading role in research that aims to develop insulin-producing cells from stem cells that would be suitable for transplantation into persons with type 1 diabetes.
Today, diabetes research is going on across the country in laboratories and hospitals from genes and cells through to clinical trials in population health and health services research.
A few examples of some of the extraordinary Canadian diabetes research going on include: research into the development of nanomedicine therapies that target the immune system, which may lead to new treatments for type 1 diabetes; understanding how community design impacts the prevalence of obesity in type 2 diabetes; and research into—[Technical difficulty]