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Stem cells could spell end for diabetes jabs |
| DailyMail |
| 15th April 2007-Hopes have been raised of a new treatment to free thousands of diabetes sufferers from the burden of daily insulin injections. |
| Scientists revealed findings of a study which shows that 15 young patients with type one diabetes overcame their dependence on insulin after being treated with their own stem cells. |
| A new scientific breakthrough could spell the end of insulin injections. The researchers say it could herald the start of a revolution in treating type one diabetes, which affects 300,000 patients in Britain. Type one diabetics have to regularly inject themselves with the hormone insulin to control their blood sugar levels. |
| The new research has emerged a month after it was revealed that the number of British children under the age of five who had developed type one diabetes had risen fivefold in the past 20 years. |
| A team of US and Brazilian scientists gave the patients powerful drugs to suppress their immune systems followed by injections of stem cells drawn from their own blood. After treatment, 14 of the 15 were able to put away their injection pens after losing their insulin dependence. And so far, one patient has been free of insulin dependency for 35 months. |
| Study leader Dr Julio Voltarelli from the University of Sao Paolo said: "Very encouraging results were obtained in a small number of patients with early-onset disease. |
| "Ninety-three per cent of patients achieved different periods of insulin dependence and treatment-related toxicity was low, with no mortality." |
| In the latest trial, patients' immune systems were suppressed using powerful drugs - to eliminate the white blood cells that were attacking the pancreas. The patient was then injected with a chemical which loosened stem cells from their bone marrow. These were filtered out, collected and later injected back into the patient's bloodstream. |
| The study only included a small number of patients between 14 and 31, and did not monitor their progress for very long. |
| Malcolm Alison, professor of stem cell biology at the Queen Mary School of Medicine and Dentistry in London, said: "In principle this is a cure because these people developed long-term control of their glucose levels. |
| "But these patients haven't been followed up long enough, so we cannot yet be sure." |
| By DANIEL MARTIN |
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