Less than 3 months after being treated for type 1 diabetes with stem cells, the patient’s body began to produce insulin on its own.
A recent study has made significant progress in treating type 1 diabetes using stem cells.
For the first time in the world, scientists have successfully reversed the disease in a 25-year-old woman through stem cell transplantation that was “reprogrammed” from the patient’s own body.
First successful treatment of type 1 diabetes with stem cells – (Image credit: Reuters).
Less than 3 months after receiving the transplant, the woman’s body began to produce insulin on its own.
“Now I can eat sugar,” she shared. “I love to eat everything – especially hot pot.” More than a year after the surgery, the woman living in Nanjing, China, has maintained this ability.
Professor James Shapiro, a transplant surgeon at the University of Alberta, Canada, commented on the surgery’s results as remarkable: “They have completely reversed diabetes in the patient, who previously required significant amounts of insulin.”
The study was published in the journal Cell, following the results of another research team in Shanghai, China. They reported success in transplanting insulin-producing pancreatic cells into the liver of a 59-year-old man with type 2 diabetes. The islet cells were also derived from reprogrammed stem cells taken from the patient’s own body.
These studies are among the few pioneering trials using stem cells to treat diabetes, a disease affecting nearly half a billion people worldwide. The majority of these individuals have type 2 diabetes, where the body does not produce enough insulin or the ability to use this hormone is diminished. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the islet cells in the pancreas.
Using cells from the patient’s own body offers hope of avoiding the need for immunosuppressive drugs, which are necessary in cases of islet transplantation from donors. However, researchers still need to monitor long-term outcomes and expand testing on more patients to confirm the effectiveness of this method.
This research opens new prospects for treating diabetes, especially type 1, using stem cells. However, experts emphasize the need for more studies and clinical trials to fully assess the safety and long-term efficacy of this approach.
