Transplants help Type 1 diabetics skip insulin

[doodadem]

Source: Reuters

CHICAGO (Reuters) - People with type 1 diabetes who got stem cell transplants were able to go as long as four years without needing insulin treatments, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

They said the process, which involves injecting people with stem cells made from their bone marrow cells, appears to have a lasting effect.

The study involved patients with Type 1 diabetes, formerly called juvenile diabetes, which occurs when the immune system goes haywire and starts attacking itself, destroying insulin-producing cells in the pancreas needed to control blood sugar.

These patients typically need daily insulin therapy to control their diabetes.



Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE53D3NH20090414

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Too late for my two Type I sisters, who have both passed away from the disease in the past several years, but good news, nonetheless.

[WriteDown]

1. Interesting stuff...nt.

[Vidar]

2. Great news for diabetics. Sorry for your family's loss.

[berni_mccoy]

3. Thank you President Obama for reversing Bush's stem cell research funding ban...

Now maybe the government can help fund this research to applicable use for a cure.

[Egnever]

4. Couldnt agree more!

[Jim Lane]

5. I agree with your sentiment, but this development is unrelated.

Bush, playing to the fundies, tried to crush research into embryonic stem cells -- i.e., those taken from embryos.

According to the linked article, these diabetics were treated "with stem cells made from their bone marrow cells". So it was their own cells, not those taken from an embryo, which is what the fundies object to.

Embryonic stem cell research can reasonably be expected to produce important advances, but they'll take a while to get here.

[berni_mccoy]

6. You are technically correct. But the treatment isn't lasting. With embryonic stem cells

they are able to change the 'signature' of the cells that the immune system picks up on. And they can grow many more times the transplant cells that they can with adult stem cells.

My meaning is that without President Obama, the hope of turning the research of this article into a cure would be much bleaker.