I think the most interesting and important part of the article...

I think the most interesting and important part of the article is the connection made to diabetes:

With hindsight, I think we still missed a key component of the mechanism in that paper. I don’t think any of us were aware that the islet cells of the pancreas, which produce insulin and are destroyed in Type 1 diabetes, contain mu-opioid receptors. This had been known since at least 2014 but it is impossible to read everything and none of us had apparently picked this up. It was in a different literature unrelated to diabetes and we had not seen it.

The presence of mu-opioid receptors in the pancreas helps explains why the beta-casomorphin7 released from A1 beta-casein is inevitably attracted to the islet cells on the pancreas where it attaches to them. When the human immune system then attacks the beta-casomorphin7, there is a risk that it will also accidentally kills the insulin-producing cells themselves to which the beta-casomorphin7 is attached. That is how autoimmune diseases often work. We have known for a long time that there is a protein in the pancreas with a somewhat similar structure to beta-casomorphin7, and that this is capable of confusing the human immune system, but we did not identify the reason why beta-casomorphin7 is attracted to the pancreas in the first place.

It was only in late July of 2020 that I put those evidential streams together and made a note to myself to write to Bob about it. Some weeks later I had still to write to Bob when my wife called out to come quickly to the TV. Alas, it was a news report telling of Bob’s life and now death.