First cure for type 1 diabetes with stem cells

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 new study has made a major step forward in treating type 1 diabetes using stem cells.

In a world first, scientists have succeeded in reversing a disease in a 25-year-old woman through a transplant of stem cells 'reprogrammed' from the patient's own body.

First cure for type 1 diabetes with stem cells - (Illustration: Reuters).

Less than three months after receiving the transplant, the woman's body began producing insulin on its own.

"I can eat sugar now ," she shared. "I like to eat everything - especially hotpot ." More than a year after the surgery, the woman from Nanjing, China, still maintains this ability.

Professor James Shapiro, a transplant surgeon at the University of Alberta, Canada, commented that the results of the surgery were astonishing: "They completely reversed the diabetes in the patient, who previously required significant amounts of insulin."

The study, published in the journal Cell , follows the work of another team in Shanghai, China, who reported successful transplantation of insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells into the liver of a 59-year-old man with type 2 diabetes. The islet cells were also created from reprogrammed stem cells taken from the patient's own body.

The studies are among a handful of pioneering trials using stem cells to treat diabetes, a disease that affects nearly half a billion people worldwide. The majority of them have type 2 diabetes, in which the body either doesn't produce enough insulin or is unable to use the hormone properly. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks islet cells in the pancreas.

Using cells from a patient's own body offers hope of avoiding the need for immunosuppressive drugs that are required in donor islet transplants. However, researchers still need to track long-term results and expand trials to more patients to confirm the effectiveness of this approach.

The study opens up new prospects for treating diabetes, especially type 1, using stem cells. However, experts emphasize that more research and clinical trials are needed to fully assess the long-term safety and effectiveness of this method.