Type 1 Diabetes treatment through stem cells

What is type 1 diabetes? Type 1 diabetes or IDDM or Juvenile Diabetes is a condition in which the body stops producing insulin. This is a fatal condition because the body needs insulin to allow glucose enters the cells to provide energy for the body.
All this long, the treatment for type 1 diabetes is through insulin injection. But insulin injection cannot heal totally, indeed it causes serious dependant on the injection and skin discoloration. Therefore the new treatment for type 1 diabetes is finally found and called ‘stem cells’ treatment.
benefits of stem cell research

Stem cells cures type 1 diabetes

Stem cells treatment borns from the idea of fixing the problem directly from its source.
Type 1 diabetes happened because the body’s immune system destroys the beta cells in pancreas which are the insulin producers. Therefore the stem cells treatment focuses on fighting the body’s immune system and therefore activates more beta cells to produce insulin. Yes, stem cells can cure type 1 diabetes.



Stem cells treatment is done by giving the patients stem cell transplant therapy from their own blood stem cells. A recent study of stem cells treatment for type 1 diabetes is done on 23 patients, aged 13 to 31, as the samples.
And the results are :

1 . more than 50% of them did not need insulin-injection help for more than one year
2 . their beta cells show some improvements in producing insulin
3 . 6% of the patients did not need insulin injection for at least three years, and 0.5%
of the patients exceed four years

And the best part is, it only takes six weeks for these results to start showing.

The side effects of stem cells treatment in curing type 1 diabetes.

Though the stem cells treatment for type 1 diabetes shows magnificent results, as astrong chemical treatment it also has some side effects. Stem cells treatment is using highly toxic drugs to decrease the attack of body immune system on the beta cells.

The side effects found in the stem cells treatment for Type 1 diabetes are :
1 . 1% of the patients got pneumonia (lung inflammation)
2 . 3% of the patients got low-sperm condition.

However, David M. Nathan, MD, a diabetes specialist, believes that the stem cells
treatment is a big progress in curing diabetes though it has serious side effects, and it will lead to a safer diabetes treatment in the future.

The stem cells therapy procedure
The stem cells therapy is also called autologous nonmyeloablative hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). The therapy aims to fight the body’s immune cells and replace the mature immune cells with the immature immune cells which cannot harm the beta cells in producing insulin.

The stem cells therapy includes these steps :
1 . Patients are given drugs to increase the blood stem cells production.
2 . The blood stem cells are taken from the body and frozen.
3 . Patients are given highly toxic drug to suppress the body immune cells.
4 . The blood stem cells are put back into the patients.

The stem cells therapy cannot show a significant result if the patient’s beta cells are
already in very critical situation. In other words, the stem cells treatment is useless for
patients with ‘insulin resistance’. Therefore, it is recommended only for newly-diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients.
However, pros and contras follow the stem cells treatment. Because most of the newly- diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients are given a diet menu and exercise programs, people consider that the insulin improvement comes from the new-programmed lifestyle.
But two diabetes specialists, David M. Nathan, MD and Richard Burt, MD
agree that it was the stem cells treatment that provoked the insulin improvement.