Diabetics cured by stem-cell treatment

The Times

This is an interesting study because it seems to avoid a lifetime of immunosuppressant drugs.

About five years ago scientists in Canada developed the Edmonton Protocol which involved injecting insulin producing cells into the portal vein of type 1 diabetics. Their liver effectively became their pancreas and began producing insulin. It was groundbreaking at the time but patients were required to take drugs to suppress their immune systems. The cells were not theirs (taken from cadavers) and therefore were at risk of attack once injected. Also, the people allowed to take part in the study were long-time diabetics with complications, that is, it was unavailable to healthy diabetics. The Protocol has moved on to transplant-type operations - one in 2005 of a mother donating part of her pancreas to her daughter. She is also required to take suppressant drugs. More info: Diabetes Info; Info about Protocol

This study involves the diabetic's own stem cells. They take a round of suppressant drugs before therapy and then stem cells are transplanted...

In a breakthrough trial, 15 young patients with newly diagnosed type 1
diabetes were given drugs to suppress their immune systems followed by
transfusions of stem cells drawn from their own blood. ...

People with type 1 diabetes have to give themselves regular injections to
control blood-sugar levels, as their ability to create the hormone naturally
is destroyed by an immune disorder.

All but two of the volunteers in the trial, details of which are published
today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), do
not need daily insulin injections up to three years after stopping their
treatment regimes.

I thought stem cells were only available from embryos but this would indicate that we all have adult stem cells too.

I think this must be a first - using cells from the same person to try and cure diabetes. V exciting. Go the Brazilians.

Stem cells are immature, unprogrammed cells that have the ability to grow into
different kinds of tissue and can be sourced from people of all ages.

stem cells can be taken from everyone's bone marrow. the problem would be to control the morphing of the stem cells to the cell phenotype u want them to grow into. they need to be placed in the right type of environment to get the signals that say that THAT is the cell type they shold change into. it's a tough job simply because our physiology is highly sensitive and not to mention complex. just the slightest alteration in the environment will not get u the desired results.

I know. It's absolutely fascinating isn't it? My husband has diabetes and we always joke that a "cure" is always quoted as being "15 years away". All these advances represent imperfect science - even in this study there were two people who rejected the treatment - and there is always the risk that the rogue immune response that gave them diabetes may happen again...