For the first time in history, a group of Chinese doctors announced they had found a way to 'cure diabetes'

Chinese doctors bring a ray of hope to patients fighting diabetes with cell therapy .

The test patient was a 59-year-old man who had type 2 diabetes for 25 years, and was at risk of serious complications from the disease. He received a kidney transplant in 2017, but has lost most of his pancreatic islet function, which helps control blood sugar, and has to take insulin injections multiple times a day.

"He is at high risk of serious diabetic complications," Yin Hao, a leading researcher at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, told Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper earlier this month.

Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, along with other facilities, has researched groundbreaking diabetes treatments.

In July 2021, the patient agreed to participate in an improved cell culture trial program . Eleven weeks after the transplant, he no longer needed insulin injections and was able to reduce his blood sugar control medication. A year later, he stopped taking medication completely.

"Our follow-up tests showed that the patient's pancreatic islet function had been effectively restored. The patient was completely off insulin for 33 months ," said Dr. Yin.

The world's first medical breakthrough was achieved by a team of doctors and researchers from institutions including Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, the Center of Excellence for Molecular Cell Sciences of the Academy of Sciences China University and Renji Hospital , all based in Shanghai, were published in the journal Cell Discovery on April 30.

"I think this study represents an important step forward in the field of cell therapy for diabetes," said Timothy Kieffer, a professor in the Department of Physiology and Cellular Sciences at the University of British Columbia in Canada. .

Diabetes is a chronic condition that affects how the body converts food into energy. Food entering the body will be broken down into glucose - a simple sugar and released into the blood. Small pancreatic islets produce insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. In diabetics, this system is compromised. The body does not produce enough insulin or does not use the insulin it produces effectively.

Type 2 diabetes is the most common form, affecting nearly 90% of people . It develops over time, largely related to diet. With any type of diabetes, the inability to maintain normal blood sugar levels can lead to serious side effects, including heart disease, vision loss and kidney disease.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is currently no cure for diabetes. Besides weight loss, healthy eating and medication, insulin is the main treatment method for patients. They must receive injections and regular monitoring.

China has 140 million people with diabetes.

Scientists around the world are studying islet transplantation as a promising alternative. The mechanism is to generate islet-like cells from human stem cell culture. Now, after more than a decade of work, a team of Chinese doctors is one step closer to this method. In the near future, they will recruit more volunteers to expand the research.

Yin said the scientists used and programmed the patient's own peripheral blood mononuclear cells, then converted them into "seed cells" and regenerated pancreatic islet tissue in an artificial environment. He sees the research as an advance in the relatively new field of regenerative medicine. In it, doctors will fully exploit the body's self-healing ability to treat diseases.

Globally, China has the highest number of people with diabetes. According to the International Diabetes Federation, there are 140 million people with diabetes nationwide. Of those, about 40 million people depend on insulin injections for life.