This is very exciting news.
Diabetes has long been considered incurable and until the advent of insulin just over 100 years ago, a death sentence. However, a group of researchers in Shanghai China have recently claimed that they have cured a 59 year old man with diabetes.
This was accomplished by reprogramming some of the patient’s own stem cells into insulin producing pancreatic cells and then transplanting those cells into his pancreas. The new cells began producing insulin and after 11 weeks the patient was able to stop using insulin injections. In the next year he was able to stop using oral medications. It has been 33 months since the stem cell transplant and the patient is still producing his own insulin.
Obviously, this patient will be followed closely for the rest of his life and the researchers will try to replicate this success in other patients.
I don’t know why this hasn’t been on the news more. I only found one TV station that did a segment on it.
Their findings were recently published in Cell Discovery
This procedure is specifically designed for patients with Type 2 diabetes, The researchers are hopeful that more time and studies could make this treatment viable for those with Type 1 diabetes.