Chinese doctors say they have cured diabetes in a 59-year-old man using stem cell therapy, a world first

Chinese researchers claim to have cured diabetes for the first time.

The patient, a 59-year-old man, received a pioneer cell transplant in 2021 and has not taken medication since 2022.

The experimental treatment involved creating an artificial version of cells found in the pancreas that produce insulin and control blood sugar levels.

The man had suffered from type 2 diabetes for 25 years and had lost almost all the functions of these cells, called islets.

He was deemed at high risk for life-threatening complications, requiring multiple insulin injections each day to keep him from slipping into a diabetic coma.

Until now, no one has ever been “cured” of diabetes, but doctors have figured out how to put it into remission.

But this requires patients to follow a relatively strict diet and exercise program to prevent blood sugar problems from returning.

However, the Chinese case suggests that it is possible to restore the body’s ability to naturally regulate blood sugar without the patient changing their lifestyle.

The treatment used stem cells, which are a type of blank cell that can be transformed into many different types of cells that the body needs to function.

Under the right conditions, stem cells can transform into brain, muscle, kidney or even pancreatic tissue.

This treatment used a new chemical cocktail to transform the patient’s stem cells into pancreatic cells.

These cells produce insulin, which tells your body when to extract sugar from the foods we eat for energy.

In diabetics, the pancreas does not produce enough insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. Too much or too little sugar in the blood can cause nerve damage, kidney damage, heart disease and more.

Click here to resize this module

By implanting new cells grown in the laboratory, capable of producing insulin, the patient could start producing their own insulin again, the researchers suggest.

This is what doctors observed in the Chinese patient.

“I think this study represents an important advance in the field of cell therapy for diabetes,” said Timothy Kieffer, professor of cellular and physiological sciences at the University of British Columbia in Canada, who did not participated in the research, at South China Morning. Job.

Although this discovery is encouraging, there is still a way to go before it can be approved by the general public.

Next, scientists will need to test their therapy on more patients.

After testing it on more people, Professor Kieffer said, they will need to find a way to scale up their operation.

Currently, transforming blank “seed cells” into functional pancreatic cells is incredibly complex, time-consuming and expensive. Scientists will need to make the process easier to make it feasible for most people.

It may only work to treat type 2 diabetes, which is the most common form of the disease.

Type 1 diabetics, whose pancreas has been attacked by the immune system, may have more difficulty using this treatment because their immune system may reject the new implanted cells, the study authors write.

Regardless of all the hurdles that still lie ahead, this could be a huge step forward for the 38.4 million Americans currently living with diabetes and the 97.6 million who will likely develop the disease.

It is the eighth leading cause of death in the country.

This article, published in the journal Cell Discovery, is the result of decades of research, carried out in many countries, on how best to transform stem cells into islet cells and how to introduce these islet cells in the body.

“Our technology has matured and pushed the boundaries in the field of regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes,” said Dr. Yin Hao, one of the lead researchers.

The study was a collaboration between three Shanghai-based institutions: Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, the Center of Excellence for Molecular Cell Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Renji Hospital.

In the future, Professor Kieffer said this therapy could “free patients from the burden of chronic medications, improve health and quality of life and reduce healthcare costs.”